AS chief executive of St John’s Hospice, I want to let you know that our hearts and thoughts are always with our community.

During these very difficult times your local hospice is still here, continuing to work hard looking after patients and their families on the inpatient ward and out in the community with our Hospice at Home and Clinical Nurse Specialist teams.

Our staff continue to be an incredible asset and we are working to protect and support them while they too face the struggles experienced by health and social care workers across the country.

Our work may look slightly different – as does many people’s work at this time, but I want you to know that our charity is still here to care for you and yours; 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as we have done for almost 35 years.

Many people assume we are fully funded by the NHS but that is not the case.

The end of life care we provide – and the wages of our nurses, doctors and support staff - is supported by fundraising events, our 11 charity shops and our increasingly popular Courtyard Café – all of which have closed, been cancelled or postponed.

That is why I want to thank you, because around 70 per cent of our funds come from you – our amazing community.

We would ask you to remember us at this time as our purpose remains the same: to put local patients and families at the heart of everything we do.

St John’s has walked alongside so very many families in this area and now our services are needed more than ever.

We hope that when this is over, our work to support our amazing community can continue.

Stay safe, keep us in your kind thoughts as you are in ours through these unprecedented times.

Thank you again

Sue McGraw

Chief Executive

St John’s Hospice