Hospice charity launches appeal to help more patients next year
Florence Nightingale Hospice Charity has launched an appeal to ensure that local patients and families get the help and support they need in 2023 and beyond.
With a growing and ageing population, and the impact of Covid-19 on expected patient outcomes, the charity know that the number of patients across Buckinghamshire and its borders who could benefit from specialist care is going to increase rapidly.
“In 2021/22 we contributed over £1.2million to hospice services – an increase of over 60% from just five years ago,” says Jo Turner, CEO of the charity. “We are committed to making sure that everyone in our area who needs it has access to the best hospice care, wherever and whenever they want it. To be able to meet this aim we will need to invest more in our services – and we cannot achieve do this without the income raised by our supporters.”
Over the past year the charity has supported thousands of patients and families. They have helped patients improve their quality of life, to create special final memories with loved ones and cared for them in the final days. They have supported families through these toughest times, helped them understand how to care for their loved ones and offered them a shoulder to cry on and bereavement support when they wanted it.
Jed Miller and his family were just one of those cared for by the Hospice team this year. “Dad’s wish was to stay at home, he wanted to be able to see his garden that he’d worked so hard on, to be in familiar surroundings and have his family and dog around him,” his daughter Vicki told us. “Since his diagnosis we were supported by Cleo, one of the Hospice’s community nurses, who helped Dad get care from the Lymphoedema Clinic and the physiotherapist at the Hospice. Cleo and the FNH@Home team arranged all of his end-of-life care – if we were worried all we needed to do was to call them and they’d give advice or come out to see us. We couldn’t have done it without them and their support.”
A donation of just £25 could fund an hour for a nurse to spend time with a patient or their family to advise and reassure them.
Jo Turner adds “The development of treatments for many life-limiting illnesses means that many patients are living with their conditions for much longer, and our services are required over a longer period. We also want to support Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust in their aims to level out health inequalities, which will lead to the development of new services and communications to reach those people who might benefit from our care but who are not currently accessing our services”.
If you want to support the charity’s appeal, you can donate at fnhospice.org.uk/donate-appeal or by calling 01296 429975.