Hospice care meant 'moments of clarity' for twin

A bereaved sister has called for a change to the funding model for hospices, saying her twin's time in one meant "moments of clarity" before his death.

Esther Wigmore's twin Tom Robinson was diagnosed with cancer and died in November aged 57, spending his final two weeks at St Catherine's Hospice in Crawley.

End of life hospice care "shouldn't be reliant on charity and on people running marathons, or whatever it is they do to fundraise", Wigmore told the BBC.

The government has committed to improving palliative care and said the current model gave organisations "freedom to raise money and provide a wider range of services".

"Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing NHS services, and the rest through other independent fundraising means," a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said.

Wigmore, a nurse with palliative care experience, cared for Robinson after his health deteriorated.

Robinson had been "quite confused, quite agitated" before he was moved to St Catherine's, according to Wigmore, but the family had "moments of clarity with him" in his two weeks at the West Sussex hospice.

"He recognised who we were, he told us that he loved us and the last thing he said to me was 'thank you'," Wigmore said.

"Those moments you hang on to in your grief because the way that someone dies, it lives on in the lives of the people that witness it."

Dr Julia Fleming, medical director at St Catherine's, said the hospice could not "currently reach everybody who would benefit" from its services, and expected demand to increase.

"We really need to have a much more equitable approach to the funding that's available to make sure that our services can be sustained for the future," she added.

Wigmore said: "It has to be a sustainable service because it's important.

"The way that we come into this world, the way we're born, we recognise that specialist services are needed then, but it's also equally important at the end of our lives."

Wigmore is among the people who will deliver a petition calling for "sustainable hospice funding" to Downing Street on Tuesday. It has received more than 100,000 online signatures.

Mid Sussex MP Alison Bennett said the government should "take the hospice sector seriously and give it the support it needs".

"I think hospices need some guarantees and assurance about the level of funding that they can expect from the government, regardless of where they are in the country," she said.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said the government would improve palliative care, including through a framework to modernise the sector, and "tackle the variation across the country".

This followed the government's "biggest investment in hospices in a generation", they added.

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