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Blythe House Hospice
Your community hospice needs your help!
Do you know what Blythe House does? Did you realise that less than a third of the hospice’s costs are funded by the Primary Care Trust? The Day hospice needs to find £250,000 from donations this year to maintain its current level of services- that is roughly £30 an hour every hour!
Many people think that a hospice is a place where elderly people go when their illness becomes too difficult to cope with at home and that is where they die. Not so! Life threatening illness can attack anyone at any age. Young people need hospices too. Care can range from symptom control and pain relief (palliative care) to a chat and a laugh with others in a similar situation. Hospices are as much about living as dying.
Blythe House is dynamic and efficient, caters for all ages and offers a wide service of palliative care, training, counselling and therapies both at the hospice, at home and in the community. The hospice cares for the people of High Peak with life threatening illness, who do not require or want residential care but who need support, be this at diagnosis or a more advanced stage of their illness. There are consultant outpatient clinics and lymphoedema clinics. Blythe House also offers training courses in palliative care for other medical professionals, e.g. Medical Practices.
The hospice tries to cater for individual requirements by offering day care on the day that best suits age and/or needs. Guests can request the hospice’s services themselves. They are also referred by GPs, District Nurses, Macmillan Nurses, Marie Curie, hospitals and carers or family.
The hospice’s services also extend to the home. Therapists provide an outreach service and counsellors offer counselling in the community. Nurses make home visits to assess the needs of potential guests and those who may not wish or are unable to attend the day care sessions at the hospice.
All these services are offered free of charge, but they are not cost free. To maintain its current services Blythe House requires more than £350,000 per year. We need at least £4000 each week in order to continue and improve what we offer! No donation is too small! In 2005 we worked with over 500 guests and their families and carers.
At the moment Blythe House is focussed on retaining two important counselling posts. The bereavement counsellor and young person’s counsellor are funded by the Lottery Fund and Children in Need respectively. Unfortunately, at a time when demand outweighs supply for these two areas of counselling the funding is coming to an end. The hospice requires help and fundraising support urgently to retain these two posts and hopefully to extend the service further.
If you have time to help or want further information, contact the hospice on 01298 815388 and leave us your contact details. Alternatively, email patricia.ash@blythehouse.nhs.uk. Donations can be sent to Fundraising Office, Blythe House Hospice, Eccles Fold Road, Chapel-en-le Frith, High Peak, SK23 9TJ
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