About Help the Hospices
Help the Hospices is the national charity for the hospice movement, giving support to more than 220 local hospices across the UK.
Help the Hospices is an energetic, open, vibrant organisation. One organisation it works with describes it as “extrovert, innovative, encouraging”.
The charity sees its role as two-fold. First, it supports local hospices in their vital work on the front line of caring for people who face the end of life. Secondly, it gives voice to the interests, views and concerns of independent hospices.
The support Help the Hospices gives to hospices takes many forms - training, education, information, grant-aid, advice and national fundraising.
The charity:
- makes sure palliative care skills reach into as many health settings as possible by funding hospices to run training programmes
- gives grants to hospice staff to undertake training and professional development
- runs courses for hospice staff in management and development
- runs a major national conference which acts as a rallying point for the hospice world
- gives awards to hospice volunteers for training or to run projects
- provides information on developments in hospice care and encourage hospices to share ideas with one another
- gives grants to hospices, their staff and volunteers
- raises funds for distribution to local hospices, for example by working in partnerships with national companies in campaigns to support the hospice movement
- supports national and professional organisations working to further hospice care
- supports hospice services in the developing world
Hospice care is one of the UK’s outstanding success stories. From the opening of the first modern hospice, St Christopher’s, in south London in1967, it has grown into a worldwide movement that has radically changed the way we approach death and dying.
It is regarded by some as one of the greatest social innovations of the last hundred years.
The driving force behind hospice care is the desire to transform the experience of dying. Still, in the 21st century in the UK, people die in avoidable pain and distress.
In hospices, multi-disciplinary teams strive to offer freedom from pain, dignity, peace and calm at the end of life.
Underpinning this care is a philosophy that takes as its starting point the affirmation of death as a natural part of life. Built on that bedrock are the values of respect, choice, empowerment, holistic care and compassion.
Hospices care for the whole person, aiming to meet all needs - physical, emotional, social and spiritual. They care for the person who is dying and for those who love them, at home, in day care and in the hospice.
Nearly half of all people admitted to a hospice return home again. The average length of stay is just 13 days. All care is free of charge.
Within hospices you will find a range of services - pain control, symptom relief, skilled nursing care, counselling, complementary therapies, spiritual care, art, music, physiotherapy, reminiscence, beauty treatments and bereavement support.
Staff and volunteers work in multi-professional teams to provide care based on individual need and personal choice.
In hospices, the needs and wishes of the person who is dying are paramount. They are empowered, and encouraged, to take all the decisions they can about their own care, about their lives and about their death.
Rather than being ‘in charge’, staff and volunteers try to be alongside the person, as a friend for the journey. They aim to help people live life to the full, for whatever time they have left - no matter how long or how short.
Hospices are communities of care, founded on respect and regard for each person, in which traditional boundaries between patient and professional are blurred.
If you are in their care you can expect:
- to be valued and given time
- to be accorded respect, privacy and dignity
- to be responded to with empathy, especially when in distress
- to be listened to and for communication to be sensitive and honest
- to be shown understanding of your individual beliefs, lifestyle and culture.
Staff are valued for their skills but are challenged to be people too, to feel something of what their patients feel.
Our history
Help the Hospices was founded in1984 by Anne, Duchess of Norfolk, who had become aware of the tremendous work of hospices during her support of St Joseph’s Hospice in London.
She became aware of the need to support local hospices through a national charity that could access funds and provide support services no available on a local level, and is still very much involved with the charity.