Hospice Services

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St Mary's Hospice is a specialist medical and nursing facility which was founded in 1989 through public subscription to care for local people from South Lakeland and Furness suffering from progressive terminal illnesses.

Built by the Community for the Community

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What do we do?
Our philosophy of care, delivered through our range of specialist services, is designed to meet the needs of the individual and enhance their quality of life. Central to our care policy is patient choice.

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We aim to: • Provide holistic, person centred palliative and supportive care for adults who have an advanced life limiting illness • Help people live with their illnesses, at whatever stage, by addressing their needs at that time, to improve their quality of life • Provide an environment where family and carers are supported, helping them to cope during and after their loved one's illness • Continue to develop services according to local need and St. Mary's Hospice philosophy • Promote continuing education for our own staff and others involved in end of life care • Provide a happy, supportive and empowering work environment for all staff and volunteers

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The hospice provides a range of services, including: • Specialised medical and nursing care in a purpose-built 8 bed In-patient Unit • ‘Day Care’ for 10 patients two days a week • Complementary Therapy supportive care services • We employ two members of the local community specialist palliative care team • We support weekly drop-in centres at Grange, Ulverston & Barrow • We employ a Patient Welfare Officer • A bereavement support service for family and friends • A Palliative Care Outreach Team • Barrow Asbestos Related Disease Support • A new Carers Project providing support and respite to family carers Since the hospice opened, thousands of local people have benefited from our services.

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What is Palliative Care?
Palliative care is the active, holistic care of patients with advanced, progressive illness. Management of pain and other symptoms and provision of psychological, social and spiritual support is paramount. Supportive care is a term for all services that may be required to support people with a life limiting illness and also their carer at any stage in their illness.

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Hospice at Home

Hospice at Home commenced as a new service in January 2008. Hospice at Home provides a dedicated specialised nursing and medical service to support patients with advanced illness who need complex care or those terminally ill patients who choose to die at home. Hospice at Home works alongside and complements existing District Nurse teams and GPs. Currently the service consists of 3 hospice nurses and operates from 8am to 8pm. In the near future we hope to extend this daytime team and then we aim to raise sufficient funds to be able to operate around the clock within the next 12 months.

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How much does it cost?
All hospice care is provided free of charge, but it is not cost free – just to maintain our current services costs around £2 million a year. The hospice has to raise 85% of that amount.

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How can you help?
We rely heavily on the generosity of the public to maintain our services. If you wish to make a contribution please click here.

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Quality of care

At St Mary’s Hospice, we aim to provide the best possible care for our patients and their families and carers. To do this, we are constantly monitoring and reviewing our practices. An important part of this review is asking patients and their families/carers whether there is anything they think we could do better.

If you have had experience of the care provided at St Mary’s, and would like to make a comment, good or bad, or make suggestions for improvement, please contact our Quality Manager, Kathy Graves, who will be pleased to hear from you. You can contact us via telephone: 01229 580305 or alternatively you could fill out our contact form and forward us your comment.

Click here to use the contact form

We also carry out regular surveys of our patients and families/carers; the results of these are published and available for you to see. Again, please contact Kathy for more information.