Four hospices unite to transform end of life care across Staffordshire & Stoke-on-Trent
Groundbreaking partnership will bring more specialist support closer to home for local people
Four hospices have joined forces in a pioneering collaboration that is changing the way specialist palliative and end of life care is delivered across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, demonstrating the value that hospices can bring to overstretched health systems.
Compton Care, Dougie Mac, Katharine House Hospice and St Giles Hospice have come together to create a more connected, responsive and sustainable model of specialist palliative care across the region. Backed by investment from NHS Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board (ICB), the initiative will expand hospice services across the county, enabling more people to access expert care closer to home, remain in their preferred place of care and avoid unnecessary hospital admissions. Not only good for patients and families, this initiative also provides an alternative to hospital admission and relieves significant pressure on hospital beds.
Believed to be one of the first collaborations of its kind in England, the four hospices will deliver the Rapid Response and Hospice Virtual Ward services, combining their expertise, resources and experience to provide equitable access to complex palliative and end of life care, regardless of where someone lives within the county.
At a time when demand for palliative and end of life care continues to rise, the hospices are demonstrating how organisations can work differently, combining their strengths to deliver more coordinated, accessible and responsive support for patients and families.
Building on the success of the hospices’ 24-hour Specialist Advice and Referral Line, which provides access to expert advice and support across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, the initiative marks the next step in their shared ambition to improve care and outcomes for local people. The investment will support the expansion of specialist rapid response and palliative crisis intervention services, ensuring expert hospice care is more readily available when a patient’s condition changes or urgent support is needed.
The services will also support people to leave hospital sooner, where appropriate, with specialist hospice teams helping patients return home or move to another appropriate care setting. By providing faster symptom management, proactive care planning and expert support when needs change, these services will help more people approaching the end of life to receive holistic care in their preferred place, improving experiences for both patients and their families.
These services reflect the collaborative’s ambition to provide more proactive, coordinated support for people with complex palliative and end of life care needs.
Rachel Overfield, Chief Executive of Compton Care, said:
“This is a significant moment for our four hospices and the communities we serve. What makes it so special is that independent hospices from across the region have come together with a shared goal: improving specialist palliative care for local people. By combining our resources and expertise and developing a louder voice, we’re creating something bigger than any one organisation could achieve alone, ensuring more people receive the right care and support when it matters most, while helping to ease pressure on wider health services.
“Here at Compton Care, we’ve seen how innovative approaches such as our Virtual Ward, which has been running for over two years, can help people receive specialist support at home, often preventing unnecessary hospital admissions and enabling them to spend precious time where they most want to be.
“The real significance of this partnership is that it allows us to build on that learning collectively, combining the strengths of all four hospices to improve access, consistency and quality of care across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent. We believe this collaborative approach has the potential to become a leading example of how hospice and NHS partners can work together to focus on what matters most to patients and families.”
David Webster, Chief Executive of Dougie Mac Hospice, said:
“As an independent hospice with over half a century of experience caring for palliative and end of life patients and their families, Dougie Mac has a reputation for innovation and sustainable growth in services, as well as a recent ‘Outstanding’ rating from our regulator the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
“However, this unique collaboration of four hospices across Staffordshire feels like a genuine landmark event. Not only have we secured collective funding for the next two years to provide specialist support beyond the extensive community services we already deliver, but by unifying our resources and expertise we have shown that hospices can spearhead essential change in our health system. We may even have created a template for others to follow, with the voluntary sector and the NHS partnering in a way that provides personalised, joined up care to people when they most need it, whilst freeing up valuable NHS beds.
“The four hospices share a goal of expanding hospice care at home, preventing unnecessary admissions to hospital and widening access to specialist, holistic, hospice care. This pioneering collaboration helps us do that at scale. Hundreds more patients will benefit from our collective approach and I’m personally delighted and proud to be part of this contemporary example of hospice care.”
David Fletcher, CEO of Katharine House Hospice and co-chair of the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Clinical Improvement Group, said:
“This is about much more than launching another service. It demonstrates the role that hospices can play as specialist clinical partners within the wider health and care system, combining our expertise, agility and deep connections with local communities to help solve some of the pressures facing patients and services.
“For patients and families, that means faster access to specialist palliative care when someone’s condition changes, with expert support to help them remain at home or in the place that is right for them wherever that is clinically appropriate.
“For our NHS and care partners, it provides another specialist option when a hospital admission may not be the best answer and can help people return home sooner when they no longer need to be in hospital.
“At Katharine House Hospice, we want to be part of the solution to the challenges facing local health and care services. By working with our neighbouring hospices, the NHS and wider partners, we can reach more people, intervene earlier and make hospice expertise a more integral part of the wider health and care system.
“We welcome the ICB’s investment in this new service and see it as a significant vote of confidence in what hospices can contribute. It is important, however, to distinguish this investment from the funding of our wider hospice services. Those essential services remain heavily dependent on the generosity of our local community, and sustainable funding for specialist palliative and end of life care remains an important challenge nationally.”
Elinor Eustace, Chief Executive of St Giles Hospice, said:
“This collaboration marks an important step forward for palliative and end of life care in our region. By working alongside Compton Care, Dougie Mac and Katharine House Hospice, we can reach more people when they need us most, whether that is avoiding an unnecessary hospital admission or simply making sure someone can stay at home with the people they love.
“At St Giles Hospice, we see every day what it means for a patient and their loved ones when the right support arrives quickly. This investment allows us to build on that experience together, sharing what we have learned so that no one across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent is left without access to specialist care, wherever they live.
“Collaboration like this is exactly what our sector needs. Hospices are often at their strongest when we work together, and this service is a powerful example of what becomes possible when we do.”
The programme is expected to support hundreds of people each year, helping more patients be cared for in their preferred place, reducing avoidable hospital admissions and freeing up valuable NHS capacity.
By working together, the four hospices are creating a stronger voice for hospice care and demonstrating the value of collaboration between the voluntary sector and the NHS. Most importantly, people across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent will benefit from more responsive, joined up and personalised support.
