Hospital Palliative Care Team Brian House Children’s Hospice
Fundraising Team
Living Well Service
Community Palliative Care Team
Medical & Clinical Support Services
Medical Team
Hospice at Home Team
Education & Research
In-patient Unit
Admiral Nurses
Virtual Ward
Housekeeping Team
Human Resources
Finance Team
Maintenance Team
Linden Centre
Chaplaincy
Complimentary therapy Lymphoedema
Clinical Administrators
Volunteer & Support Services
Reception Team
Physiotherapy
Retail Team
Psychology
Catering Team
Message from the Chair of the Board of Trustees & Chief Executive
This year, as we mark our 40th anniversary, we reflect on how far we’ve come – and how much further we must go. We continue to be guided by the philosophy of Dame Cicely Saunders, who taught us that people matter until the last moment of their lives, and that pain is not only physical but emotional, social and spiritual.
Hospice care is not a luxury. It is a necessity in a just society. Trinity
We also acknowledge the challenges ahead. Statutory funding now covers less than 27% of our costs. Demand for our services is rising and the complexity of care is increasing. These pressures are not unique to us, but they do pose real risks to the sustainability of high-quality care.
Over the past 12 months, we have achieved much of what we set out to do, and this review is a testament to the dedication of our teams and the impact of our work. We have strengthened our services, extended our reach into homes, care homes, hospitals and communities, and continued to innovate in how we deliver care.
Hospice is not just a place, it is a promise. One we intend to keep for the next 40 years and beyond.
Despite this, we remain resolute. We are not just surviving – we are evolving. Looking forward, we must continue to reimagine hospice care beyond our walls. We must find new ways to strengthen the connections between different parts of the care system, working alongside partners who share both our pressures and our commitment to improving care. We must also continue to advocate for a fairer, more sustainable funding model.
Chair CEO
Who we are
Trinity has been at the heart of the Fylde coast for 40 years, providing compassionate care for people on their journey towards the end of life. Our dedicated specialist nursing teams touch the lives of thousands of patients and families each year, with one vision for the future – that everyone across Blackpool and the Fylde coast has access to high-quality and consistent end-of-life care.
Our outstanding care and support is free to all who need it, wherever they want it; whether they are in our hospice, in hospital or a residential care home, or in their own home in familiar surroundings. And we don’t stop at the end of a person’s life – our care continues through bereavement support for as long as someone needs us.
Our business objectives
Enabling compassionate care and support:
we will work with our partners to make sure palliative patients know their choices and receive only the best care from us
Improving our effectiveness:
we will comply with all quality standards while making sure that we continue to reach all who need us using donated funds wisely
Investing
in our people:
we will do everything we can to make our staff the most skilled professionals in their areas of work and ensure they know their value to our organisation and in our community
Financing our future:
we will continue our work to grow our income so that we can ensure we are able to care for all who need us on the Fylde coast today and in the future
The community we serve
Pilling
Garstang
Hambleton
Knott End-on-Sea Fleetwood Cleveleys
Bispham
Blackpool
Lytham St Annes
Esprick Great Eccleston
Kirkham
Freckleton
• In-patient care from our team of specialist doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals on a 14-bedded unit – 24 hours a day, every day of the year
• Supporting people through our Living Well Service to help patients maintain independence and supporting physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being
• Extending our care beyond our building with our Community Palliative Care team, providing care and support at home and in care homes, as well as in hospital with our Hospital Palliative Care Team
• Providing hospice care during the night in people’s homes through Hospice at Home
Our family of services
Through our family of services our care reaches every corner of Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre, and we are proud to offer a range of services to give support at every stage of a palliative journey for patients as well as their loved ones. Including:
• Supporting some of the Fylde coast’s most vulnerable children and their families through our dedicated children’s hospice, Brian House
• Specialist treatment and advice through our Lymphoedema clinic
• Bereavement support through the Linden Centre, supporting patients and those they love through very difficult times
• Supporting acutely unwell patients at home, saving hospital and hospice beds, through our Virtual Ward
Your local hospice
2024-25 in numbers
We cared for more than 3,155 patients and 465 carers/ loved ones across our family of services.
30 patients were admitted to the In-patient Unit 356 Per month
HOSPICE AT HOME saw 1,131 patients WITH AN AVERAGE OF... admissions
OUR HOSPITAL TEAM supported 1,671 PATIENTS
TRINITY HOSPICE’S COMMUNITY PALLIATIVE TEAM
81 children were given support at Brian House with 30 new children referred
9,857 supported 2,102 patients making 6,126 visits by the Hospital Palliative Care Team to inpatients in Blackpool Victoria Hospital
Total number of face-to-face Lymphoedema appointments 798
were made to people at home
Of
those patients known to the community service...
92% died out of hospital 84% died in their preferred place of care
That’s much more than the national average
We ran a total of 2,206 Adult One-to-One Counselling Sessions and 407 groups
We ran a total of 243 Child One-to -One Counselling Sessions had a non-cancer diagnosis 24% of all patients
Bereavement Counselling 497
Butterfly Suite used for 25 days
852 complementary therapy sessions provided
Across all services, we supported 40% of all deaths on the Fylde coast in 2024 (January – December), as well as coaching, training and supporting other health care professionals
Supporting people living with dementia through social activities
Across our catchment area, there are 4,023 people recorded on the Dementia Register, and there are 270 people living with young onset dementia.
We have supported 619 people this year through our Dementia Lounge.
Our popular Dementia Lounge is a supportive social event which takes place every month at the hospice. It is hosted by our Admiral Nurse, Maxine, and Admiral Nurse Assistant, Julie, supported by a team of 15 dedicated and passionate volunteers.
During sessions our Admiral Nurse team and their volunteers provide refreshments, fun activities, friendly supportive conversation and signpost to other services that local people may find helpful to support them or their loved ones living with the symptoms of their condition.
I like it here as I feel welcomed and I am treated like a normal person. I feel listened to by other attendees and the Admiral Nurse Team.
Our team can also conduct clinics and provide access where required to our in-house social worker, and can refer into other hospice networks, such as our Living Well Service, and external community colleagues, including the Royal British Legion Admiral Nurses, initial response services and adult social care teams.
At Trinity, our care doesn’t stop once a person has died.
As well as supporting their loved ones for as long as it takes, we also continue our compassionate care to the patient in the moments after their death and until they are transferred into the care of the family’s chosen funeral director.
Providing care and dignity after the end of life
Our dedicated space within the hospice for this compassionate and very specialist care has been upgraded, which has resulted in improved patient and staff experience, and an inspection by Blackpool Council provided positive feedback for our excellent standards of care and provision for patients after they have died.
We have also worked closely with a number of local undertakers to identify best practice and discuss new ideas to ensure a seamless journey for loved ones.
Further work to improve this area of the hospice is planned for 2025-26.
Patient story
It’s surprising how someone can take the unimaginable experience of seeing the love of your life at the end of theirs and make it so
calm. Our three girls were there, we’d arranged to get a pizza and we were watching Strictly Come Dancing. It was like that was the moment he chose to go; it was meant to be.
Steve’s death was the death that everyone deserves, and I’m so grateful we had that time and experience together.
Steve was so fit and healthy. To be told he only had six months to live was unimaginable.
But right from the start, Steve knew he wanted to be at Trinity. We’d seen their compassion and care the year before when my Dad was at the hospice, and knew it would be the right place for all of us to just have time together, when the time came.
It doesn’t seem like long afterwards that, during some difficult days at the hospital, the Trinity team came to see us. The nurse held our hands and said, ‘this is probably it’. It was almost a relief to have someone say it. They helped us to prepare with honesty and openness, and that’s all we wanted.
As soon as he arrived at the hospice, they assessed his symptoms and pain management, and it was like I got Steve back. He’d stopped talking he was in so much pain, so you could just see the relief in him.
For him to be awake and not in pain was a miracle to us. It meant the world to have a week just speaking with him again.
Even an hour before he died, he was eating an omelette! That’s simply down to how incredible everyone at the hospice was. I am eternally grateful to every single person at Trinity.
It’s like all of a sudden someone takes your hand and says, ‘it’s going to be OK’, and you realise it will be OK. The day is coming, and it’ll be sad, but you’re in this perfect place, you’re all together and it’s peaceful. At Trinity, this heartbreaking moment is also calm and as pleasant an experience as it possibly can be.
I know my grief is a journey. I’ve stopped waiting for this feeling to end and I realise now it’s something I’ll learn to live with. But I have a focus – to support this incredible charity that has done so much for us, because no-one ever knows if and when they’ll need it as much as we did.
Enhancing our spiritual care provision and creating teaching moments
We’ve launched a programme of teaching in spiritual and religious care to support staff in their professional and personal growth, and it’s been a pleasure for us to welcome faith leaders into the hospice to create opportunities for staff to learn more about the rich diversity within our community.
We’ve also been able to extend pastoral care to patients at home across Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre, and become more involved with the emerging groups within the Living Well Service while ensuring that nearly every patient on the In-patient Unit has received a visit from either our pastoral visitors, volunteers, or the chaplain.
The patient’s bedside offers a unique vantage point to witness the remarkable work of our clinical colleagues—bringing comfort, alleviating pain and upholding dignity in every moment. But the quality of care patients experience is made possible by so many
others too: from those who clean and prepare rooms with such care, to the fundraisers, HR, administrators, retail teams and volunteers who ensure the hospice not only exists, but thrives.
Together, this wider community enables us to deliver palliative care that is not only clinically excellent, but deeply compassionate.
Amidst all the activity, it remains a profound privilege to sit quietly with patients and their loved ones—to listen, to support and, where appropriate, to pray. It is here, in these deeply human moments, that we are reminded of what truly matters: to cherish each moment, to honour every person, and to ensure that whatever we do, we do it with love.
Compassionate care and support
From the moment my mum entered Trinity, both she and the family have been treated with the upmost respect, care and compassion. The Trinity team has kept us fully informed and consulted on every step of Mum’s journey. The support that the whole family has received has been excellent and without it would have meant a much greater struggle in coping with Mum’s illness.
This work is also being carried out in community health and social care settings and with patients who come into contact with the North West Ambulance Service with a view to improve the frequency and quality of ACP discussions on Ward 11 at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. Improving our effectiveness
Supporting local providers to record important conversations
We have worked hard to ensure that effective Advance Care Planning (ACP) discussions take place with all patients with a palliative diagnosis to ensure they get the treatment, care and support in the place of their choosing, and their wishes are heard and, wherever possible, adhered to.
Our Frailty Nurse has done a lot of work in local care homes to ensure staff are confident in having these discussions, and, importantly, recording them.
Thanks to this collaboration, ACP discussions increased from them being held with 3% of patients to 71%.
We now plan to roll this work out to other wards within the hospital.
Throughout the year, our Hospital Team has delivered training and education to 905 healthcare professionals across the hospital. Sessions covered key areas such as end-of-life care, symptom control and Advance Care Planning.
At Trinity, we strive for a continuous service to cover the full 24-hour period for all patients who need hospice care, wherever they are.
Working with district partners to support patients at night
However, staffing challenges have meant maintaining a consistent twilight approach has proven difficult. This has provided us with the opportunity to create a formal partnership with the District Nursing Community Team at night.
Our Assistant Director of Clinical Services, Anita Dodd, says: “By sharing resources and working collaboratively, we ensure that the Fylde area receives the support it needs.
“This partnership allows us to provide consistent and comprehensive care to our patients between the hours of 10pm and 7.30am. We have a Memorandum of Understanding between services to support each other, and the community nurses have also been working from Trinity Hospice for joint working.
“We liaise with the District Nursing Team each day to ensure staffing is meeting the needs of the service.
“Our proactive approach has empowered patients and families and ensured that care is aligned with individual values and choices.”
Reaching hard to reach families and supporting children in the community
At our dedicated children’s hospice, we support children and their families with complex care and management for children with life-long limiting illnesses. But we recognise some of our families don’t want or need our respite care, but still need our expert support at home.
We’re pleased to have been able to expand our service into the community by embedding new ways of working and expanding the team’s specialist skills and knowledge, and introducing a new Healthcare Assistant role to provide community-based family support.
Through this new role, we have forged new relationships with the teams supporting asylumseeking families at a local hotel, allowing us to provide vital support to non-English speaking families.
We’re also attending a wide range of community events and conferences to present how we are supporting local families. We also held our own More Than Medicine conference which highlighted the importance of partnership working and holistic care, guiding professionals in meeting the pastoral, spiritual, and religious needs of children, young people and their families – particularly within community settings.
As a result of this work, we’ve seen an increase in referrals for school-aged children, reflecting the growing awareness and demand for our services, and hard-to-reach families are now receiving specialist care and support tailored to their unique needs.
Ensuring our shifts meet the needs of patients while being fair for our staff
Despite the capacity of 18 beds on our In-patient Unit, with the funding we receive we can only operate a maximum of 14 beds.
But this relies on our amazing nursing and medical teams being able to consistently and safely manage all beds across the full 24-hour period.
Our nursing shift pattern meant that we couldn’t guarantee full cover, and therefore impacted the number of patients we could care for while maintaining high-quality end-of-life care, especially to patients who are experiencing complex symptoms.
We reviewed our shift pattern against staff absence, feedback from colleagues and workforce pressures
and looked at the provision of other hospices and how they staffed their In-patient Units. This confirmed the need to create a formal staffing establishment model to support consistency in workforce planning and identified gaps in our previous model.
We’ve been able to prepare a programme of new start and finish times to ensure a more balanced and equitable schedule for all staff, equalising the day and night shifts which will promote fairness and consistency across the service.
These changes will allow us to consistently support up to 14 patients in the hospice with dedicated hospice care, day and night, every day of the year. Our teams will feel shifts are allocated fairly and our staffing levels will always allow for our dedicated care for local people.
Improving our effectiveness
Supporting our people through professional development
We pride ourselves on supporting staff to undertake professional development.
For nursing staff and allied health care professionals, this is an important part of demonstrating their fitness to practice. Revalidation supports nurses to capture their learning and, more importantly, how they have applied this to patient care.
Supported by our new Education Strategy we have continued to provide a wide range of staff development opportunities to improve both management and leadership capabilities and clinical skills.
Our teams celebrate this success and congratulate individuals and teams for their achievements.
These successes include:
• Recruited to a new Community Specialist Practitioner in Palliative Care Development role.
• Supported a management team member to complete Level 7 qualification in Strategic Leadership and Professional Development
• Further developed the Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP) role.
• Continued to develop the Nurse Associate Programme
• Management and Leadership upskilling across all clinical settings and teams.
To be part of Team Trinity is not just a job – it’s a privilege.
Dedicating my time to patients, ensuring their voices are heard, their choices respected, and their palliative care journey supported with compassion and dignity, is not just my responsibility – it is my pleasure.
Upskilling our clinical colleagues to become specialists in their fields
During this year, we have developed a training plan which aims to upskill Our People through education and support, allowing them to progress their careers towards being specialists in the field of palliative care.
We have supported our clinical workforce to be equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to support more patients and relatives in the community, and therefore enabling them to remain in their preferred place of death.
Our plan includes clinical supervision, shadowing, senior support and bitesize training sessions for team members, delivered by our own Advanced Care Practitioners to the wider community
teams. Opportunities have also been taken to work alongside alternative specialists to enhance colleagues’ overall knowledge and learning within their field of practice.
Effective clinical supervision within the Community Palliative Care Team and Hospice at Home Team continues to support the development of specialist knowledge and skills in palliative care. We’ve also strengthened our links with other specialist services, such as the Motor Neurone Team to further enhance our learning offering.
We recognise that working in a hospice relies on the strength and resilience of all of our people, whether they are patient facing and supporting the delivery of compassionate end-of-life care, supporting families and loved ones through bereavement and loss, or helping to raise money by sharing stories of those we have cared for.
Whatever role our people have at the hospice, it’s a very reflective place to work and some patients, situations or circumstances stay with us.
To help all of our people with their resilience, our Wellbeing Steering Group, supported by the wider organisation, hold a number of events and initiatives to encourage everyone to take time for themselves and be present in the moment.
Focussing on Wellbeing for all of Our People
Our Schwartz Rounds have been active for a number of years, providing colleagues with regular opportunities to share emotional experiences from both inside and outside of the workplace in a supportive and confidential environment.
Our Mindful March activities provides a daily reminder throughout the month on the importance of wellbeing and offers simple hints and tips to help colleagues be present in the moment and take time to focus on themselves.
And this year we held our Wellbeing Day with activities, advice and tips to take away, including cocktail and mocktail recipes and simple exercises.
Government funding is appreciated but it doesn’t bridge the gap
To support hospices as we all face a funding crisis, the Government has announced £100 million of funding will be made available.
In the first wave of funding, for this financial year, we expect to receive £205,071 via Hospice UK, which must be spent by the end of March and must be spent on capital projects only – items such as building work, heating systems or IT resource.
This is the first wave of funding. The government will announce a second wave in the next financial year which must be spent with the same stipulations during the 2025-26 financial year.
We are very grateful for this money, which at a time when it costs more just to stand still and our National Insurance contributions are significantly greater than before, means we can still focus on some of the capital projects that otherwise might get neglected as we focus on the cost of caring for our community.
However, because this money is restricted to capital projects, it doesn’t fill the gap in the increased costs of providing our vital care. And with our buildings being 40 years old, a recent feasibility study has highlighted the need to spend upwards of £5m to keep our Low Moor Road site operational into the next 20 years.
We have been able to identify capital projects for this year in order to receive our allocated funding. We are working to identify projects for next year, which must be complete by March 2026 for us to receive our second allocation.
It means we continue to rely on our community – the people we care for – in order to reach everyone who needs our outstanding care on the journey towards the end of life. That’s why we continue to call on the government for a longterm reform of how end-of-life and palliative care services are funded, especially hospices who are now increasingly having to cut back vital services to survive.
Raising vital funds in celebration of our history
This year we launched our 40th anniversary celebration and appeal.
While the hospice opened its doors and accepted its first patient on 3rd June 1985, for us, the whole year will be about celebrating the last four decades, and the difference we have made to local people.
It’s thanks to our community that we are here today – to Dr David Cooper’s tireless efforts to ensure that everyone living in Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre had access to good palliative and end of life care, and to the people who spent years fundraising to make his vision possible.
And that didn’t stop once the doors opened, and our reliance on the generosity of others remains.
That’s why, along with our celebrations, we are asking our community to continue to support local hospice care, and we’ll be reaching out to our MPs to be our voice in parliament; to champion the work that we do – the difference we make – to ensure that all hospices receive the funding they need in order to provide consistently good palliative and end-of-life care to all who need it.
Because everybody has the right to a good death.
Our Fundraising Promise
We will be clear, honest and open
We will be respectful
We will be fair and responsible We will be accountable
Special gifts that keep on giving
Our commitment to fundraising
As a registered charity and member of the Fundraising Regulator we are committed to the highest standards, adhering to the Fundraising Code of Practice, monitoring our fundraisers and those we work with and complying to charity and other associate laws and regulations.
• 626 supporters donated through a regular gift each month, totalling £74,405
• 76 people remembered Trinity Hospice or Brian House through a gift in their Will
• 298 businesses across the Fylde coast and beyond chose to support local hospice care
• 681 supporters and community groups organised their own fundraising events and challenges, raising a collective total of £547,614
• 2,960 people supported hospice care in memory of a loved one, worth an incredible £1,019,844
Grants & Trusts
We received a total of £14,500 from four grants this year
We received £2,500 from Sport England to provide Boccia equipment and sessions through our Dementia Lounge
We are incredibly grateful for the continued support from our friends at the Kentown Wizard Foundation, which has once again been the headline sponsor of our two major fundraising events supporting Brian House Children’s Hospice – Blackpool Night Run and Blackpool Santa Dash.
Their grant of £20,000 enabled us to put on these two fantastic events, ensuring that every penny raised or donated by participants went straight to providing outstanding care and support to local children living with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions.
And if that wasn’t enough, they also provided an extra £1,000 as a special gift from Ken to be won in vouchers to some of our Santa Dash participants, selected at random through a prize draw before the run set off.
With their support, and that of the hundreds of people who joined us at these two events, we raised an amazing £131,663.
Supporting our charity to provide outstanding care
An incredible 12,872 people took part in our events throughout the year
By the end of March 2024, we had 11,349 people playing our weekly lottery, with 13,528 weekly plays
Fundraising for the Fylde coast’s biggest charity continues to be an ever-increasing challenge as our community’s needs for palliative and end-of-life care increase while statutory income from the government fails to meet exceptional levels of inflation.
It means we must find new and creative ways for our community – the people we serve – to support us, raising more money so that we can continue to provide care and support that is free at the point of need for those who require it.
Elmer’s Big Parade Blackpool, which came to an end this year, is an excellent example of our creative fundraising, but was being delivered against a significant fundraising target to be met through our enviable events programme, our community and corporate activities, and people who choose to fundraise for us in memory of loved ones, through making a regular donation and through gifts left to us in Wills.
Increasing our presence on the high street to fund our care
This year has been another one of success for our shops, increasing the difference we make through selling quality pre-loved items and increasing the awareness of our charity within our communities.
While seeing record sales in our existing shops, we’ve also opened three new stores this year, each with a dedicated stock ask to boost our offering to local people.
On the back of the success of our break-out stores, we have opened another dedicated book and music store, a second Attire by Trinity Hospice dedicated menswear boutique and our first ever childrenswear shop, stocked full of items from clothes and accessories to toys and games for children up to the age of 16.
But this year the cost of sending poor quality items to rag has gone up, meaning it now costs us more to discard of pre-loved items that are not good enough for us to sell in our shops – this could be because they are stained or worn out.
We’re used to seeing donated items that aren’t in a good enough condition for our shop floors, but we’ll be reminding our generous supporters of the cost of getting rid of them throughout next year because we know they wouldn’t want us to spend money discarding of their items.
This year, we claimed £178,456 in Gift Aid
More than 135,000 bags of items were donated Our Retail Team processed 3,375,094 donated items
Our team of shop managers and assistants, our volunteers, van drivers and administration team are an incredible asset to our charity, always striving to raise as much money through their shops as possible to support local hospice care.
As we look to next year, we’re organising some in-store and community events to celebrate 40 years of local hospice care across the Fylde coast and raise vital money to help ensure its future.
The landscape in which we operate has shifted dramatically
We find ourselves in a perfect storm of financial pressures, including real-term reductions in statutory funding, inflationary cost increases and rising demand for our services. This has turned the trajectory we originally set out – to expand our reach, enhance our community support and strengthen our role as a palliative care hub – on its head and our timescale to achieve all we set out to last year is now not possible.
At the core of this challenge is a chronic funding imbalance
Statutory funding has fallen below 27% of our overall costs – far lower than the UK average for hospice support of 35%. Meanwhile, inflation has risen by over 25% in the last four years, fundraising has become increasingly difficult, and the competitive healthcare employment market has forced us to keep pace with NHS pay uplifts despite receiving far lower financial support.
These pressures have already forced difficult decisions, but we are not standing still and are doing more than ever to raise money and save costs wherever possible.
Adapting to the new reality
The next three years must now focus on protecting and sustaining our core services and ensuring that every £1 invested in our care goes further while maintaining our commitment to high-quality, patient-centred care.
Our communities deserve the very best care at the end of life, and we remain determined to grasp opportunities for service enhancement whenever they arise.
Without action, local people will face fewer choices at the end of life, placing further strain on an already overstretched NHS and social care system.
Our vision, therefore, is about resilience and responsibility. It is about finding new ways to meet growing demand within constrained resources, while continuing to advocate for fair and sustainable statutory funding. It is a plan that reflects the reality of today – but remains firmly rooted in the vision of a better tomorrow for everyone who needs our care.
Our Vision is more important than ever: Everyone on the Fylde Coast has access to ‘timely’ and ‘consistent’ integrated palliative and end-of-life care and a good death.
And Our Purpose is never-ending: Enabling compassionate care on the journey to end of life.
Marking a major milestone for our children’s hospice
In 2026, our dedicated children’s hospice, Brian House, turns 30.
It’s a wonderful milestone for our hospice, recognising the need for dedicated care and support for local families who are caring for a child who is life-limited.
It’s a particularly poignant occasion, as it celebrates a birthday some of our amazing children simply won’t reach.
Like Trinity’s 40th, it will be a year of celebrating the difference we make to local families thanks to the support of wonderful people in our community who choose to support our charity.
In Brian House, we’ll be hosting parties and events for our families, and taking the time to remember the children we have cared for over the years and their loved ones who we continue to support.
But we’ll also be opening up conversations about the importance of children’s hospice care, and reminding those in power why we need consistent funding that properly meets the needs of children’s hospices across the country.
At Brian House, we are in the terrible position of being the second least funded children’s hospice in the UK. We only receive an 11% contribution from the state.
It means our rallying call is desperate, and must continuously reach further in order to provide the same level of outstanding hospice care for our families. Although a fragment of our annual running costs, the funding we receive is crucial to the sustainability of many of the services we provide. In fact, if the government does not maintain it, vital services will be cut.
Providing consistent cover with a structured approach
At Trinity, our Community and In-patient Unit teams operate a specialist palliative care advice line, which provides telephone-based clinical support and guidance to patients, their loved ones and other health care professionals who are referring patients to our care.
Whilst the existing provision is available across a full 24-hour period, the quality, consistency and accessibility of advice can vary depending on the time of day and the clinician on duty. This creates a risk of fragmented care and suboptimal support for patients, families and healthcare professionals seeking timely guidance.
We need a more structured, consistent and accessible advice model provided by Trinity.
Over the next 12 months, we plan to implement a full review and redesign of the specialist palliative care
advice line to ensure it delivers high-quality and clinically robust support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This will:
• Improve patient outcomes to reduce unnecessary and inappropriate hospital admissions by supporting earlier intervention, symptom management and effective care planning, enabling more patients to remain in their preferred place of care
• Strengthen workforce capability by providing targeted training and ongoing professional development to staff delivering the advice line, with a focus on effective triage, communication, clinical decision-making and risk assessment
• Ensure equity and continuity to better facilitate integration between in-hours and out-of-hours services, promoting continuity of care and reducing variation in advice quality across time periods.
An update on the plans for our buildings
As our building reaches 40 years old, the need to update our facilities continues.
Throughout the year we have been finalising our plans for a phased upgrade of appliances, core systems and staff facilities, and are still on track for work to begin next year.
The provision of funding from the Government for capital projects has enabled us to consider starting some of this work earlier than planned, but doesn’t go far enough to cover the £5 million bill we are forecasting.
Supporting transition to adult services
When a child who we are caring for at Brian House reaches 18, we are no longer able to meet their needs in a children’s hospice setting.
The transition from childhood to adulthood for young people with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions is important, and by supporting them to develop the knowledge and skills to manage their health condition, we can help their families to manage better.
We want to ensure that young people, and their families, experience an effective and seamless transition into adulthood by having the right health and social care in place. We also want to improve their health and wellbeing outcomes for the longer term.
Strengthening our fundraising to provide exceptional care
It was wonderful to celebrate our first ever public art trail, Elmer’s Big Parade Blackpool, which exceeded expectations and raised over £200,000 and engaged with over 200,000 visitors. Overall, it was worth £14 million to the local area.
Based on its success, we will be considering a new trail for the resort to take place in 2027 to raise vital funds for Brian House.
We will continue to strengthen our income streams through continued stewardship and identifying new supporters, while celebrating those who support us, and show their impact through continued storytelling to ensure our message shines through.
Recognising our volunteers for the impact they make
With more than 650 volunteers supporting our work across all services, it’s important that we continue to recognise the significant impact they have on all who need Trinity’s care.
We plan to build on our recognition through volunteer trips and celebration events, and maintain strong communication with the wonderful people who donate their time about the difference they continue to make.
We will use real volunteer stories to recruit more volunteers for specific roles, growing our volunteer base so we can continue to care.
