Hospices play a fundamental part in our country’s care system and most people know at least one friend or family member who has been supported by a hospice. Be it an adult hospice or children’s one – the unfortunate truth is that none of us know if one day we will come to rely on a hospice, either for ourselves or a loved one.
Whether a person requires emotional support to deal with the diagnosis of a terminal illness (either as a patient themselves, or of a loved one), or the practical and specialist hands on care which is needed by someone who is coming to the end of their life – hospices are there, each and every day, supporting thousands of families. All of the services they provide are given completely free of charge.
There are over 200 hospices across the UK and on average they receive between 10% and 50% of the funding they need from the government. This means that hospices need to raise millions of pounds every year to keep their services running and to continue to be there for the local communities they serve. Quite simply, hospices will only continue to be here to care if we care enough to support them. Hospices care for the individual needs of a person and focus on their wellbeing, as well as their illness. Their services can include:
- Day Care, to help patients socialise with people who are in a similar position to themselves so that they don’t feel alone
- Massage, physio and complementary therapies to ease stresses and strains and promote independence
- Support with breathing techniques and other ways to control hard to live with symptoms
- Personal care, like discrete hairdressing for people who might be losing their hair through chemotherapy treatment
- Emotional and practical support to deal with things like financial difficulties and benefit entitlements
- 24 hour Inpatient Care to control pain and provide essential respite for family and carers
- Specialist play and music therapies for children
- Home visits, to enable people to remain in the comfort and dignity of their own homes if that is their wish
- Bereavement Support, both group and one-to-one
You can read more about the services provided by hospices in the information about our individual hospice partners.
How funds generated by Local Hospice Lottery support the hospices and are distributed
Through paying as little as £1 per chance to enter a weekly draw, lotteries provide an easy, fun and affordable way for local people to support the work of their local hospice. And not only that…..of course as a player you get the chance to win some fantastic cash prizes every week too. So you could say that it’s ‘win-win’!
Local Hospice Lottery is a society lottery which operates for the benefit of hospice care across the country. This means that by sharing one prize fund and one set of administration and licensing costs – our partner hospices can benefit from a low cost, low risk way of boosting the income they so desperately need to carry on caring.
And because it’s monthly income, it means that it’s regular and reliable and not only helps our hospices to provide care to their respective local communities today – it also allows them to plan for tomorrow and to develop their services to meet the ever growing needs of the communities they serve.
Since 1997 Local Hospice Lottery has contributed in excess of £50 million to hospice care. In 2022 for each £1 entry in the weekly draw Local Hospice Lottery gave an average of 66p to hospice care.
In 2022, £11.9 million was raised from tickets purchased by players supporting all participating hospices, with 3% spent on prizes, 12% spent on administration and management and 19% reinvested to recruit new lottery players. The remaining 66% was given to hospice care – an amazing total of £7.8 million.
The more people that play in support of them – the more your hospice will receive! Being transparent is extremely important to us and you can see exactly how much we’re aiming to raise for each of our hospice partners on the individual pages about them.
