This campaign has now closed
Hospice at Home West Cumbria is a pioneering organisation. We were one of the first hospices to pioneer home nursing for the terminally ill and this project seeks to guarantee this service into the future by finding funding to cover the salaries of our 7 most active nurses.
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Hospice nurses are the people who deliver hospice care to patients – the individuals that come to mind when people think of Hospice at Home. They all work part time and their earnings vary widely, from £1,000 at the lowest up to £18,000. This project seeks someone who would be willing to cover all or some of the salary costs of the 7 nurses who do most hours for Hospice at Home West Cumbria, a total cost of £105,000 a year. Hospice at Home West Cumbria is the only provider of hospice services to the local community, which is one of the least affluent in England. In 1987 when the charity was set up there were no hospices in England providing a home nursing service and we, together with another hospice in the south of England, pioneered the concept of home nursing for the terminally ill. Our service means that local people have the option to spend the last few weeks of their life at home with their families if that is what they want. One measure of our effectiveness is the percentage of all deaths that take place in the home which in England is 18%; in the area we serve is has been between 40% and 45% every year since 1998. Over the years we have developed an excellence in home-based palliative care, and the quality of our work has recently been acknowledged by GlaxoSmithKline who have awarded us one of their prestigious IMPACT Awards, made in association with the King’s Fund, to recognise and promote excellence in community healthcare. We would be delighted if the person funding this project wanted to take an active interest in the work of Hospice at Home West Cumbria and get to know the nurses she/he is funding.