His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales officially opens Marie Curie Hospice, West Midlands

Press release published

His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, Patron of Marie Curie officially opened the new £20 million Marie Curie Hospice, West Midlands in Solihull today.

The Prince of Wales was joined by long-term Marie Curie supporters girl group, The Saturdays, who have got behind the building of the new hospice since laying the first brick two years ago.

The Prince of Wales visited the day service centre with The Saturdays and met in-patients privately. He spent time touring the extensive grounds of the hospice and met volunteer gardeners and staff. His Royal Highness also met pupils and teachers from the local Solihull School, all of whom have a personal family connection to Marie Curie. The Prince of Wales then gave a speech and unveiled a plaque which commemorates the official opening of the hospice.

Marie Curie Chief Executive Dr Jane Collins said, “We are honoured that His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales was able to attend today and open our new hospice and meet our staff, volunteers and patients. We also very grateful to The Saturdays for their continued support, and to everyone who has been involved in raising the funds to build this fantastic new hospice, which will allow us to care for more patients across the West Midlands.”

Rochelle from The Saturdays attended for her first official public appearance since the birth of her daughter and said, “It is such an honour to be part of such a special day and amazing to see how fantastic the hospice looks and we are all very proud to be ambassadors for Marie Curie.”

The new Marie Curie hospice provides free expert care for people with terminal illnesses. The new hospice will care for more than 2,000 people each year, with privacy, dignity and comfort. The hospice boasts private en-suite rooms for in-patients, a state of the art day therapy unit and landscaped gardens. This has all been achieved thanks to £7 million raised over the past two years through the BIG Build public fundraising campaign.

Follow the day’s events via Storify.

–ENDS–


Contact information

Marie Curie press office

Updated

Notes to editor

The new Marie Curie Hospice, West Midlands provides:

• 24 spacious en-suite bedrooms allowing patients the privacy and dignity they deserve, and giving them direct access to the gardens.
• A day therapy unit which will support twice as many patients as the old Marie Curie Hospice in Warwick Rd., Solihull, offering complementary therapies such as aromatherapy, acupuncture, massage, reflexology, reiki and relaxation techniques.
• A 30 per cent increase in counselling and emotional support services to help take away patients’ fears and enable bereaved family members to cope with everything they’re going through.
• A base for the Marie Curie Nursing Service for the whole of the West Midlands, ensuring we can fully understand and meet patients’ needs, whether they are cared for at home or in our hospice.
• The new hospice’s services will be available to support people with terminal illness and their families, across Birmingham and the West Midlands.
Marie Curie Cancer Care is one of the UK’s largest charities. Employing more than 2,700 nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals, it provided care to more than 35,000 terminally ill patients in the community and in its nine hospices last year and is the largest provider of hospice beds outside the NHS.

Funding
Around 70 per cent of the charity’s income comes from the generous support of thousands of individuals, membership organisations and businesses, with the balance of our funds coming from the NHS.

Marie Curie Nurses
The charity is best known for its network of Marie Curie Nurses working in the community to provide end of life care, totally free for patients in their own homes.

Research
The charity provides core funding for three palliative care research facilities; the Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Unit at University College London, the Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute Liverpool and the Marie Curie Palliative Care Centre at the Wales Cancer Trials Unit (Cardiff University). The charity also supports palliative and end of life care research through its project grant funding streams, the Marie Curie Cancer Care Research Programme (administered by Cancer Research UK) and the Dimbleby Marie Curie Cancer Care Research Fund. Both research programmes aims to tackle the funding and knowledge gap in palliative and end of life care research, which in turn will benefit patients, families and carers.

The right to die in place of choice
Since 2004 Marie Curie Cancer Care has been campaigning for more patients to be able to make the choice to be cared

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