Team's hospice at home drive (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Team's hospice at home drive

5:00pm Friday 19th March 2010 in

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A HOSPICE team have launched a fundraising drive in a bid to extend nursing services to care for people who want to spend their dying days at home.

St Michael’s Hospice has launched an appeal to raise £25,000 to fund an extra Hospice at Home nurse.

If successful, the appeal will increase the ability to respond to calls during the hours of midnight and 8am when no other palliative care or nursing service is operating.

Hospice marketing manager Lucinda Stubbs said: “Hospice at Home is such a vital service for patients living at home with a life-limiting illness.

“It would just be fantastic to be able to extend this service to provide patients with access to an on-call service through the night for when help is needed.”

The Hospice at Home service was launched in 2009, and like many other charities in the current economic climate, St Michael’s, which is sited in the grounds of Basingstoke hospital, has been struggling with funding to get the service fully up and running – hence the launch of the appeal.

The out-of-hours service will provide patients and their carers with a contact number to call should an urgent situation arise during this time.

A Hospice at Home nurse can then provide advice over the telephone or go out and visit the patient as appropriate.

This means that the likelihood of an unwanted or unnecessary admission to hospital or the hospice can be avoided and patients can remain at home throughout their illness.

Anyone interested in donating cash towards this appeal can visit the hospice website at stmichaelshospice.org.uk or call the fundraising team on 01256 848848 for more information.