Our Hospice care goes far beyond the walls of our buildings. With our tranquil lakeside setting and hospice gardens, our outside environment plays a big part in the experience that our patients and their families have at the Hospice.
With the cost of living rising, there is a growing need for us to be more sustainable and utilise every spare patch of land we can to enhance the quality of life of our patients. Our gardens allow us to host fundraising events in our own grounds, to keep costs low. Our annual Santa Dash and Mini-Moo events by the lake have become a highlight for our patients and nurses alike.
Our estates team are familiar faces around the Hospice grounds and at our offices at The Well, and they are responsible for taking care of our gardens. We have an amazing team of volunteer gardeners who tend our lawns, flower beds and planters, and our allotment and greenhouses. Some, like David, even look out for wildlife and have created squirrel picnic benches for our trees. Read his story here.
With our patients’ wellbeing at the core of everything we do, each one of our In-Patient Unit rooms has a view of Willen Lake and the Hospice gardens serve as a peaceful space for patients to spend time in with their loved ones. Our estates team ensure our paths are accessible, and there is direct access to the lakeside for our Willen Walking group every Thursday.
It’s only thanks to the ideas, hard work, love and care of so many people that our Therapeutic and Wellbeing team were able to create the patient gardening group. Our estates team ensured that planters were tall enough to be wheelchair accessible and dismantled and reassembled a greenhouse to a location in our wellbeing courtyard.
The team also thoughtfully applied for funding to buy quieter gardening tools to protect the tranquility of our surroundings. Our outside space also provides a quiet spot for visiting families and friends who’ll often return to our Tree of Life sculpture in our Peace Garden to remember their loved ones. If you’d like to dedicate a leaf to your loved one on our Tree of Life, we’d love to hear from you. Find out more here.
None of this would be possible without our amazing, green-fingered people. We’re always on the look out for more gardening volunteers. Find out more and register your interest here.
