The idea of a hospice – locally funded and aided by volunteers – is virtually unheard of in Bulgaria.

The language doesn’t include a translation for palliative care, the special kind of care that hospices provide.

But with the help of staff at St Giles Hospice, Bulgaria is set to open a hospice of its own this spring.

A team from Bulgaria has visited St Giles to learn about the charity’s care for people living with cancer and other serious illness in the local community.

The three-day visit was initiated by Gillian Winser, a Clinical Nurse Specialist at St Giles who first visited Bulgaria in 1998 as part of a team of volunteers restoring a day centre for disabled children.

Over the past four years she has travelled to Sliven, 170 miles east of Sofia, to work on the Blue House project, which is due to open as a day hospice in just a couple of months’ time.

On her most recent trips she has been joined by colleague, Graye Wilde, also a Clinical Nurse Specialist.

Gillian (54), who lives in Aldridge, explained: “Our work has included renovating the building and training staff, so that they are able to go out to people’s homes and offer the sort of care that people living with a long-term illness need.

“With the day centre ready to accept its first patients in the coming few weeks this is a very exciting time for everyone involved in the project, including our visitors from Bulgaria.”

Two nurses and one director from the Blue House Hospice, accompanied by a translator, observed work at St Giles’ Day Hospice, visited a GP surgery in Tamworth to gain experience of the hospice’s links in the community, joined in medical meetings and visited the hospice’s In-Patient Unit.

They also spent time with St Giles’ Bereavement and Lymphoedema teams.

Gillian continued: “The visit was a wonderful and thought-provoking experience for us and our guests, and I know they will take away the vision of St Giles and aim to achieve the same for Sliven.

“Bulgaria can be considered about 40 years behind Britain in this sort of care, but we have to be aware of the cultural differences which have caused this.

“Bulgarians tend to keep their emotions to themselves which is, in part, a legacy of the communist years when people couldn’t speak out and so just got on with their day-to-day lives.

“They also have little concept of volunteering – under communism everyone was given a job and told what to do.”

When it is fully operational, the Blue House will provide a day hospice, hostel accommodation and training for young people leaving local children’s homes, as well as supervising aid work throughout the region. The project is backed by the Saltmine Trust, based in Dudley.

For more information on the Blue House project, visit www.saltmine.org/easteurope/bluehouse.htm

St Giles Hospice is one of the best-known and most respected charities in the region, offering high-quality nursing and medical care for people with cancer and other serious illness, as well as providing support for their families and carers.

Patients come from across the hospice’s catchment area, which ranges from Ashby de la Zouch in the east, to Cannock and Walsall in the west – and from Burton and Uttoxeter in the north, to Sutton Coldfield and Coleshill in the south.

Care is offered at the hospice's facilities in Whittington near Lichfield and Sutton Coldfield, or in patients’ own homes across the region.

St Giles spends over £5million every year providing its specialist services. With just a third of this funded by the Government, the registered charity relies heavily on donations and fundraising.