Too many unaware hospice care is free, says charity
Families are "missing out" on specialist end-of-life care as people do not know most hospice services are provided for free, a charity has said.
The Severn Hospice says it recognises national statistics which says two in five people are unaware that they could be receiving the care without charge.
Only 57 per cent of Britons are aware that services provided by hospices are generally free for those receiving them, a new poll by Hospice UK found.
Hospice care is provided free of charge to people with terminal or life-limiting conditions, the hospice and palliative care charity said.
The charity said hospice services can be provided at home and in care homes, but a third of adults believe such care can only be provided in a hospice building.
Heather Palin, deputy chief executive and director of care at Severn Hospice, said: “I recognise many of those findings from our own experience, even though we are such a local, community-based charity with a really solid base of supporters and contributors.
“The people of Shropshire and Mid Wales absolutely recognise the work we do but there are common misconceptions about the work of hospices. For us ‘hospice’ is not a place it’s our system of care, wherever that is needed.
“Severn Hospice is about the living and we are caring for more patients each year than ever before; we care for more of them at home than in our buildings and we are caring for people for longer.
“People’s needs and expectations change and Severn Hospice constantly adapts its services to meet these needs. This is exactly why we have developed our Living Well plans as part of our work to develop our community services in Shrewsbury and Telford so that they can access the care they need when they need it, irrespective of diagnosis or place of care.
“All of the care we provide will continue to be free of charge thanks to the overwhelming generosity of so many people.”
The poll of 2,100 British adults also found one in five of those surveyed believed that hospice care was only available to people in their final days.
It found there are potentially 118,000 people in the UK with terminal and life-limiting conditions who are not able to access the expert care they need at the end of life, including hospice care.
Hospice UK chief executive Tracey Bleakley said: "This survey shows there is tremendous good will by the UK public towards hospices and that they are dear to people's hearts, however it also reveals some surprising gaps in people's knowledge about modern hospice care.
"We know the very idea of hospice care can be daunting for many of us and this can affect how people engage with hospices.
"The insights from this survey will help us to reach out to more people who don't know about the life-enhancing hospice care available to people with terminal and life-limiting conditions."
