In September 2024, Springhill Hospice in Rochdale received a grant from the East Lancashire Masonic Charities, grant-making committee, for the sum of £2,455.56, this total was also matched by a grant from the Masonic Charitable Foundation giving a total grant of £4,911.12 to purchase new hot food trolleys.
(Pictured: Ian Sumner, Andy Halford, Russ Perks, Dawn Pierson and Dave Jones)
Springhill Hospice provides multi-professional palliative and end-of-life care and support to adults with life-limiting illnesses, as well as providing emotional and psychological support for their loved ones. Springhill Hospice is the only palliative care serving supporting communities from across Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale area. The hospice has a 16-bed inpatient unit and provides day therapies, and has specialist community services, and counselling and bereavement support services.
On Thursday 13th March 2025, the Eastern Area Charity Steward Russ Perks along with Andy Halford (Eastern Area Chairman), Dave Jones (Eastern Area Deputy Chairman) and Lee Reilly who is the Area communications officer, was kindly invited to visit the hospice by Sophie Ansley who is the Fundraising manager for Springhill Hospice, and Dawn Pierson of the fundraising team to see how the grant has helped them, and also to have a spot of Lunch, and see how the trolleys work and how they have benefited the hospice and all the patients.
Ian Sumner who is one of the chefs at the hospice, then explained how the trolleys work and also how they have benefited in the flexibility in meal timing, as patients often have varying needs and he explained how the new trolleys allow them to serve meals when patients are ready to eat or to serve the meal later if a patient is unable to eat at the scheduled time.
Sophie explained how the heat retention of the food served contributes to the overall and well-being and comforts, for the patient as well, Ian said that the staff and nurses have also benefited on the ward, he explained how each trolley can hold up to 8 meals, and when the ward is at maximum capacity, the nurses can just put the meals into the trolleys, instead of having to take them back to the kitchen, which ultimately gives them more time to spend with the patients.
Sophie also explained that when the meals had to be taken back to the kitchen it also had a knock-on effect to the kitchen staff as they would have to wait till the meal was ready again to be served, now they don’t, and the Staff can finish on time. Sam Wells, who is the Chief Executive for the hospice, also said that she cannot thank the East Lancashire Masonic Charity, and the Masonic Charitable Foundation, enough for their very generous grant, which enabled us to purchase the new equipment, and all of the Eastern Area Freemasons.
Report by Russell Perks PProvGStwd, Eastern Area Charity Steward.