Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice offers Specialist Palliative Care to adults facing the end of their life and to those who love and care for them, serving a population of 600,000 across West Surrey and North East Hampshire. Specialist Palliative Care is about more than controlling symptoms and pain, which hospitals and other health care services would be able to do. We offer support with all the other difficulties that a terminal illness can bring. We firmly believe in offering an integrated package of care that reflects both clinical requirement and patient choice. Patients are individually assessed and we offer a truly holistic approach to care, acknowledging and incorporating physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual needs. it might be easier to think of ‘palliative’ as the type of care required when ‘curative’ care is no longer an option.

Every year, millions of people around the world living with a life-limiting illness experience unnecessary pain and distress, either unaware of or unable to access the care they need. We are all hugely fortunate to have such an exceptional palliative care resource available to us free of charge in our community, and we are determined to continue developing our services. Every day we support over 100 patients and carers in their own homes and at the Hospice.

• The NHS covers less than 16% of our costs, which is under half the national average for hospices. This means we have to fundraise 84p in every pound the Hospice needs to spend. For that reason, we rely heavily on the support and generosity of the local community. All our services are free of charge, but we need to fundraise over £10,000 a day to offer such an exceptional standard of clinical care and support so income from legacies, sales from our thirteen shops, fundraising events, general donations and corporate support are all essential