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Vital grant funding has enabled staff from Brighton-based social care organisations to help provide access to end of life care and promote equality for people experiencing homelessness.

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Logo of the Masonic Charitable Foundation
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Martlets Hospice were awarded £20,637 from the Masonic Charitable Foundation via Hospice UK for a project to tackle equity of end of life care for people experiencing homelessness.

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Watch: people involved with the project

Hear from people who have benefited from the training, including:

Karen Leenders, New Steine Mews

Sophie Howard-Thomas, Brighton Housing First Coordinator

Sara Emerson, Team Lead for Just Life Health Engagement Team

About the Homeless Health Inclusion project

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Having identified a demand for better knowledge in end of life care, they collaborated with a number of other social care organisations in the Brighton and Hove area, including Brighton Housing First, New Steine Mews, and Just Life, to train and upskill their staff on how to provide end of life care to people experiencing homelessness.

Importantly, the project helped remove accessibility barriers for end of life care by ensuring that information and support was available to professionals.

Also based in Brighton, council-run Glenwood Lodge – the second largest hostel in Brighton – is a 48 bed homeless hostel for men, with 30 beds for men who are placed by social services as an ‘off-the-street’ offer and 18 beds for men with complex health needs, substance abuse or ex-offenders. Many of the men with more complex needs see the hostel as their home.

Staff at Glenwood Lodge had limited experience of end of life care with their client group. However, they required much better support, skills and knowledge to enable them to feel confident when dealing with clients who are at the end of life. 

‘A disenfranchised group’

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In 2020, hospices cared for more than 300,000 people – both in hospices and in the community. This included almost a million ‘hospice at home’ visits. [source: Hospice UK Annual Report 2020]

However, it’s estimated that 100,000 people don’t get the care they need at the end of life. And some groups miss out more than others, including people experiencing homelessness. [source: Nuffield Report 2022]

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Sara Emerson, Team Lead for Just Life Health Engagement Team
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"This…may be the only time they’ve ever been able to be properly looked after, address their issues, and to have somewhere safe to live."

Sara Emerson, Team Lead for Just Life Health Engagement Team

How the grant funding helped

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The Hospice UK/Masonic Charitable Foundation grant provided Helen Lyons (Senior Staff Nurse at Martlets Hospice, and Project Lead) with the ability to train staff at social care organisations on how to deal with end of life care issues. 

Glenwood Lodge staff highlighted that the training from Helen was seen as incredibly beneficial. It has helped them with a lack of confidence, knowledge and how to best support people at the end of their lives.

Culture change for social care organisations

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Culture change was one of a number of key outcomes that the grant enabled. Sara Emerson, Team Lead for Just Life Health Engagement Team, says: “this idea of putting into our culture of hostels and outreach teams, to think about end of life, and longer term work – the dignity and respect that comes with good quality end of life work – this training has added that to our style of working.”

Sophie Howard-Thomas, Brighton Housing First Coordinator, said that improving their staff’s confidence in having those difficult conversations has been highly beneficial: “our model is the main support mechanism for those clients…so we need the support to have those kind of conversations.”

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Karen Leenders, New Steine Mews
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Training has given staff “a better insight into the levels of end of life care services available to them and their clients.” 

Karen Leenders, New Steine Mews

Knowledge of physical health and medication

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Sophie also added that as a result of the training, Brighton Housing First now includes a ‘frailty score’ in their initial assessments to help them understand the physical health of their incoming clients and ensure that wraparound support is available.

Staff at Glenwood also learned how to best secure medication and administer – a big concern for them, given the environment in which they work – and the training enabled them to link up much more effectively with the hospices and CNS. They say it’s now much easier to know who to go to for end of life care support for their clients.

Choice and dignity at end of life

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Karen Leenders, of supported accommodation at New Steine Mews, said that the training has given their staff “a better insight into the levels of end of life care services available to them and their clients.” 

Sara Emerson also commented that the project had finally given their clients choice – and the opportunity to be properly looked after – sometimes for the very first time in their life: “these people may have lived in homeless accommodation for a long time, where there are really strict rules… and there is no choice. 

About the Masonic Charitable Foundation Grants

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The Hospice UK and Masonic Charitable Foundation (MCF, the Freemasons' charity) grants programme is vital in supporting projects across the country.

Their partnership with Hospice UK aims to support different areas of hospice care, based on what has been identified as the sector’s current needs.

Closing for applications on 28 February 2023, the current MCF grants programme aims to support the provision of palliative and end of life care to people with low socioeconomic status in England and Wales.

MCF also offer bursaries for hospice staff to improve the quality of care given to the patients in need of hospice and palliative care, and to their families and carers.