Hospice UK was founded in 1984 (then known as Help the Hospices) and is the national charity for hospice care.
Hospice care transforms lives. It’s there for all of us through life, through death, through grief. At Hospice UK, our vision is that everyone, no matter who they are, where they are or why they’re ill, should receive the best care at the end of their life. We think hospice care is critical to achieving this. We represent and support over 200 member hospices and work with them and other organisations to develop and improve hospice care to help more people living with terminal illness and their loved ones throughout the UK.
Our strategic priorities are to:
be the leading advocate for hospice care
promote and support excellence in hospice care
support those providing hospice care.
Our values: we aspire to be supportive, professional, collaborative, creative and confident.
What we do
Our work supports the development of hospice care in the UK and internationally. By supporting hospice professionals, championing the voice of hospice care and promoting clinical excellence, we help hospice care providers to deliver the highest quality of care to people with life-limiting or terminal conditions and their families.
We support the breadth, dynamism and flexibility of modern hospice care by influencing government and decision makers, improving quality of care through the sharing of good practice, and providing resources, education and training, and grant programmes. We also support the development of hospice and palliative care worldwide. Read more about this work below.
We champion the cause of hospice care
We provide a national voice for hospice care which we use to lobby government and position hospices as leaders in providing the very best care at the end of life. This ensures hospice and end of life care are high on the government’s agenda when developing policy.
We help improve quality of care
We help hospices to achieve and maintain excellence in their care and governance by offering support programmes and sharing good practice, including numerous publications and practical tools. This has a direct impact on hospice care and how it is delivered in the UK.
We offer education and training
One of our founding visions was to support education and training. We offer a comprehensive range of education and training courses for professionals working in hospice and palliative care, helping to ensure the hospice workforce is fully equipped with skills they need to provide the best possible care and leadership.
We offer a range of grants
We provide a range of grants for individuals and hospices. These grants can be for anything from helping towards paying for a professional qualification to funding for special projects to grow and develop hospice services. We also offer our support and expertise to help hospices manage projects and evaluate them.
We raise awareness of hospice care
We run a national hospice care campaign to help raise awareness nationally, as well as support hospices to promote hospice care in the communities they serve.
We also help to raise awareness of the key issues for hospices in the media, as well as supporting hospices with their own communications work.
We support hospices with their fundraising
Collectively local charitable hospices need to raise £1.9 million every day from their local communities to fund the care they provide. We support our members with their income generating activities, as well as manage several corporate partnerships which raise funds directly for our members.
We support hospice and palliative care internationally
We support international work that oversees the development of hospice and palliative care worldwide, particularly in developing countries. We believe that everyone living with a life-limiting illness has the right to quality, affordable care.
Our strategy
Find out about our strategy and objectives, including our workstreams for 2014-2017.