Last updated 15:53, Wednesday, 16 April 2008

IT was standing room only as over 100 people came to Hospice at Home West Cumbria’s 21st birthday celebration.

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The hospice logo

Among those present was the Cockermouth GP who helped found the charity .

Dr Brian Herd looked back to 1987 when the late Margaret Dowling, the first Macmillan Nurse started to develop ways of caring for the terminally ill and supporting their families. He praised her work and how Dr Berrell had promoted the need for more help for families facing “intolerable strains”.

He pointed out that Cumbria’s scattered population meant a conventional hospice was not appropriate and “we knew patients wanted to stay at home”..the answer was to bring the hospice to the patient, a concept unknown at that time.

He took the audience back 21 years to “the first Whitehaven public meeting where 350 people braved a cold windy night and the new charity was formed.”

He said the West Cumbrian venture had become a blueprint for similar home hospices across England.

To quote from its award-winning website, “Hospice at Home West Cumbria is a ‘Hospice without Walls’; we have no Hospice building. We provide hospices services at home to people with life-threatening illnesses, and their families within the West Cumbria area – free of charge. This makes it possible for people to spend the last weeks or months of their illness in familiar surroundings, with their family and friends around them.”

Guest speaker, Lord Judd, a Labour life peer who lives in the Lorton valley, heaped praise on Dr Herd and the other “people with vision and imagination” who had launched the Hospice at Home service. He said that last year when the charity won the top GSK award “Hospice nurses in that year provided 11,883 hours of service..a terrific record.”

He added: “We see a fascinating and almost sinister contrast nowadays...we are technologically more and more advanced, but is our sense of community and service more backwards. We see a kind of society that looks to technology but forgets how to care ...but you (at Hospice at Home) are a living example that this need not be the case.

“You have rediscovered that sense of community and care, that is very special and Thank You.”

He hoped the charity would grow and develop in its next 21 years.

The gathering then heard from clinical services manager Linda Hewitt of coming plans including ‘living for today’ project which aimed to “turn darkness into light” for some patients. She said there would also be a redesign of the drop-in services and development of Millom hospice support.

The charity has Prince Charles as patron and Lady Egremont as president.

Hospice at Home West Cumbria are putting on a series of events throughout 2008 to celebrate its 21st anniversary, these include:

The charity is holding a grand draw. There are 21 prizes – a prize for every year of Hospice at Home’s life. First prize is a one-hour experience flight for one person around the Lake District in a two-seater aircraft. Other prizes include two night’s bed and breakfast for two people at the Hazelmere guest house, Keswick.

Future fund-raising events include a complementary therapy day, an evening trip on the Ratty and concerts.

Last Thursday the children of St James Junior school and head teacher Catherine Winzor handed a £200 cheque to the Hospice at Home from a recent fund-raisng event.