St Giles Hospice is launching a new 12-month pilot scheme to give patients improved access to care in their own homes – thanks to a £39,000 grant from a private charitable foundation.
The money was awarded to the Whittington-based charity by Help the Hospices – an organisation which distributes funding from the St James’s Place Foundation.
It will be used to expand St Giles Hospice’s Hospice at Home service, which sees nurses and healthcare assistants provide specialist care in the community for local people living with cancer and other serious illnesses.
Previously, St Giles did not have sufficient funding to support Hospice at Home visits during the evening. Following the award of the grant, however, nurses will now be available to attend patients’ homes between 4.30pm and 10.30pm, seven days a week for the next 12 months.
Louise Savage, Hospice at Home manager, said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to have been awarded this grant because it means we can now bridge the gap between our existing daytime and overnight services, providing complete continuity of care and support for our patients and their families.
“This has been on our wish-list for quite some time after we completed a short and successful pilot scheme last year, but couldn’t continue it due to lack of funding.
“This underlines just how much we depend on charitable support to provide our care across the community – both from generous local people and through grants such as this – and we would like to thank Help the Hospices and the St James’s Place Foundation for making it possible to extend and enhance our Hospice at Home service.”
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