This year’s Festival Charity is: St Oswald’s Hospice.
Website: http://www.stoswaldsuk.org/
About the charity
Young male in a wheelchair
St Oswald’s provides specialist care for local adults, young people and children.
Situated in Gosforth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, their purpose-built facilities offer a range of flexible services to North East families.
Within the adult service, there is a day hospice, lymphoedema service, an inpatient unit, complementary therapy service, consultant outpatient clinic and an outreach service.
Adults with life limiting conditions are referred to St Oswald’s Hospice for pain and symptom management and end of life care. They care for patients with cancer, as well as those with end stage neurological, cardiac and respiratory conditions.
Female child in a wheelchair with carer
Within the Children’s Service, they offer specialist short breaks to children and young people with life limiting conditions and their families. Children from 0 – 18 can benefit from care at St Oswald’s. They have also developed a pilot service for young adults, aged 18-25, to continue to support children in their care who are reaching adulthood and perhaps those who have already left the service
The multi-disciplinary team at St Oswald’s includes doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, social workers, chaplain support and complementary therapists.
St Oswald’s make no charge for our services – ensuring care is available to everyone who needs it. With annual running costs of £8.5 million, they rely heavily on support from the local community. They simply couldn’t run the Hospice without them.
Day Centre Care Team
Anita Ball, Director of Fundraising at St Oswald’s said:
“We are a charity with our roots in the heart of the north east community and every day I am fortunate enough to see the difference the care and compassion provided by our teams makes to the patients as well as family and loved ones.
“I’ll never be able to adequately describe to you here why the Hospice is such an amazing place. Yes we have a fantastic purpose built facility, but it is the staff and volunteers you encounter that truly make the difference. It is the human touch and understanding and willingness to go the extra mile.
Older woman talking with a volunteer
“Walk through our doors and you’ll quickly see that St Oswald’s is all about life. There’s a lot of bustle, a lot of laughter and a huge dollop of care and attention. At St Oswald’s, it’s about living life to the full, no matter how much time you have left.
“You might be surprised to learn that a large part of our work involves pain and symptom management – so that patients can continue to enjoy quality of life, for as long as they live.
“Our Children and Young Adults Service provides specialist short breaks so that the children and young people we care for are able to do ‘normal’ everyday things, which you or I might take for granted.
“It’s through the support of events like The Newcastle Beer & Cider Festival that we can continue to care for families from across the North East at a time when they need it the most. Thank you for helping us continue to care.”
