Hospices are a vital part of our health system, providing valuable end-of-life care, and offering physical, spiritual, and emotional support to patients and their families.
Hospices provide peace to families, and help people to live the end of their lives with dignity, surrounded by their family, and caring staff.
However, the hospice funding model means that each hospice only has a third of its funds provided by the NHS, relying on the rest to be covered by charitable donations.
For this reason, it is important to increase the awareness of local hospices, for instance the St Helens-based Willowbrook Hospice, which provides high-quality palliative care for its patients.
According to a doctor who recently worked at the hospice, they ‘provide out-patient care and advice, as well as short periods of time as an in-patient, often for 1-2 weeks for patients with particularly complex symptoms’.
The Willowbrook Hospice website explains that they help support an impressive ‘340,000 people in our local community’, and to do this they rely heavily on donations.
It costs Willowbrook £960 every 24 hours to care for a single patient, and £5.2 million a year to run all their patient services.
A relative of a patient said that they ‘were very grateful for all of the support they received’.
Willowbrook raises these funds in a variety of innovative ways.
For example, they are currently offering free places onto the 2025 Paris Marathon, allowing runners to admire the streets of Paris while raising money for a fantastic organisation.
For the less adventurous, Willowbrook have an annual ‘Light up a Life’ appeal.
The appeal allows people to dedicate a light on their Christmas tree to the memory of a loved one, with the light symbolising the enduring memory of the light in your heart.
The service takes place on 14th December 2024, and is a moving, poignant way to remember those who have passed away, and also support a brilliant charity.
If you would like more information, the website is: https://willowbrook.org.uk/.
