Trusts and Foundations

Each year Dorothy House is very grateful to receive grants from a wide variety of charitable trusts and foundations.

Every penny helps us to fund our vital palliative and end of life care services making a lasting difference to patients, families and carers in our community.

Our services and their impact

Dorothy House provides a wide range of vital inpatient and community services for over 4,000 people across our region. 90% of this care is provided in people’s homes or in community settings,

Through an ongoing programme of impact assessment, evaluation, and research we ensure that our services are targeted, effective and efficient. Our last inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated us as “Outstanding,” putting us in the top 3% of service providers in the UK. We are very happy to provide funders with copies of our Annual Reports, Annual Accounts, CQC Reports, and Impact Reports.

See reports

How you can make a difference

Our mission is to ensure that everyone has access to outstanding palliative and end of life care, however we are still only supporting just over half of those with an end of life care need in the area. This is why we need your support.

Dorothy House could not continue to support so many families without the support of our community; over 1,100 volunteers assist our work. However, as only 20% of our overall income is funded by the government, your grant is vital to ensure that our work can continue.

£218 could fund

a compassionate, skilled and experienced Hospice at Home Carer to provide care overnight, enabling a patient to stay at home at the end of their life.

£1,000 could fund

24 hours of care for one patient on our Inpatient Unit.

£4,353 could fund

the cost of our Spiritual Support service for one month, giving patients and relatives the chance to explore their spirituality at a difficult and emotional time.

Examples of our partnerships

We are proud to have formed strategic partnerships with a wide range of charitable trusts and foundations. When you partner with Dorothy House, you’ll be working with a trusted charity that reaches the heart of local communities. We will provide regular updates on the use and impact of your grants, as well as detailed final reports at the end of the funding period.

Improving end of life care for patients with learning disabilities – funded by the People’s Postcode Trust.
Supporting core nursing services in Wiltshire – funded by the Wiltshire Community Foundation.
New Community Palliative Care Clinics– funded by the James Tudor Foundation, the Margaret Fisher Charitable Trust, Chippenham Borough Lands Charity and Melksham Town Council.
Expansion of community care– funding support provided by the Garfield Weston Foundation, the Albert Hunt Trust and the Underwood Trust.

A grant from Wiltshire Council's Small Grants Scheme has helped to fund...

Thanks to the funding we have received from Wiltshire Council Small Grants Scheme, we are better equipped to meet the needs of children with SEN accessing our services at Dorothy House. As a result we are now offering more 1:1 support to children with SENs. Children are being offered up to 8 therapeutic sessions or more if their needs are more complex. Every 6 to 8 weeks, we run group family events for children, young people and their parents / carers.

Inclusive 1:1 support and group activities for children with SENs

We have been able to make these events more inclusive and this allows children with additional needs to participate fully. Activities are accessible to children of all abilities, and with an increase in staff and additional resources, we foster a sense of belonging and provide essential support to children. This year we have arranged events and activities in local woodlands; arranged a paddle boarding evening in the Summer, and we recently held an enjoyable drumming workshop at Dorothy House in Winsley. All of these events allowed children and young people to express themselves non-verbally and channel their energy.

The purchase of books and equipment to help children with SENs understand the palliative care needs of a loved one

The grant has also allowed us to purchase a diverse collection of books, and equipment aimed at helping children with SENs to understand the palliative care needs of their loved ones. These resources are used to assist children in processing and comprehending sad and challenging news. For instance, children with SENs may need support in coming to terms with the fact that their mum or dad is going to die due to their illness.

Integral support for children with SENs to understand, learn and cope with a bereavement

Having SENs, a learning disability or autism does not mean a child cannot be affected by, understand, or learn to cope with bereavement. It is important the child is supported to understand what has happened to the person they love and is encouraged to take part in activities that help them to cope with their feelings about the loss. Looking ahead, we aim to promote our services more extensively, to ensure palliative care patients in Wiltshire, who have children with special educational needs requiring support, get the help they need.

Contact us

If you would like to speak to us about how you can support our work, we would love to hear from you.

Please contact us on 01225 721480 or email trusts@dorothyhouse-hospice.org.uk