Hospice Care Week


Hospice staff and volunteers with the one word that hospice care means to them St Giles Hospice teamed up with hospices across the UK to launch the inaugural Hospice Care Week in October.


To mark the week, which aims to raise awareness of the services hospices provide, St Giles ran a ‘One Word Challenge’ on Facebook and Twitter, to encourage supporters to come up with a word that sums up what hospice care means to them. St Giles representatives also manned an information stand in The Mall shopping centre in Sutton Coldfield.


The Brewers support St Giles


Burton Albion FC made St Giles Hospice their charity for the season, as part of the Football League’s partnership with Help the Hospices.


In October midfielders Adam Bolder and John McGrath visited the Day Hospice in Whittington, while Brewers star Jimmy Phillips came to the centre’s Christmas party disguised as Santa!


Training course brings future care into focus


A new training course aims to help St Giles Hospice volunteers educate local people about the need to plan for their future care.


Twelve volunteers from the hospice who attended the ‘Thinking and Planning Ahead, Learning from Each Other’ course explored how to assist people to plan for the impact of illness or disability and express wishes about their future health care.


The course, which was delivered by St Giles’ Nursing Director Sarah Riches and Head of Education, Theresa Barker, was put together by the University of Nottingham in association with the Dying Matters Coalition and the National End of Life Care Programme.


Local support in the local


A support group for bereaved adults has been piloted by St Giles Hospice and Ian Hazel Funerals – in a pub.


The group met six times in Sutton Coldfield’s Toby Carvery in Sutton Park, offering people the chance to speak to St Giles’ bereavement volunteers, while guest speakers covered subjects including finances, health and social support.


“Thanks to the dedication and commitment of all of


you at the hospice, dad was treated with respect and dignity. The care he received was totally faultless.”


St Giles Care Agency is go


The St Giles Care Agency team


A new service providing high-quality paid-for personal care for people across the region was launched by St Giles Hospice in October.


Although St Giles Care Agency is a wholly owned subsidiary of St Giles Hospice, the two organisations are run independently of one another, with St Giles Care Agency drawing on the hospice charity’s wealth of expertise and specialist knowledge to deliver private services to those who are not eligible for free hospice care.


The service is entirely funded by the individuals and care organisations which benefit from its care, with every penny of the net proceeds from St Giles Care Agency’s work used to support the free specialist care provided by St Giles Hospice.


To find out more, call 01543 434490, email mail@stgilescareagency.com or visit www.stgilescareagency.com.


01543 432 031 • www.stgileshospice.com • mail@st-giles-hospice.org.uk 13


HOSPICE NEWS


Burton Albion’s John McGrath (left) and Adam Bolder with St Giles Hospice patient Tom Robey


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