St. James's Place Charitable Foundation Hospice Grants

Additional research funded by National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) found that hospice at home services support most of their patients to achieve a ‘good death’ and to die in their preferred place. What people most valued about hospice at home care in the last days of life was the time given to provide hands-on care and develop relationships in the home, by staff experienced in death and dying. Earlier contact from a hospice at home service also had a positive impact on outcomes, and another important factor for success was support for the family carer in the home.

This grant programme will support projects that provide hospice/ palliative care for people who are terminally ill and dying at home.  Specifically to encourage hospices to expand their services to new client groups as well as their carers/families, by inspiring and funding small innovative projects that will make a tangible difference to people dying at home. 

We have included below a broad list of example projects. Some of the areas are about testing new approaches and ways of working.  However, if you are already delivering these services, we would be interested in projects that extend the reach so more people can benefit. We are looking to fund examples that are delivering person centred care.

Example projects:

• Hospice Care at Home
• Early identification – Hospice and GPs
• Rapid discharge from hospital to home
• 24/7 Single Point of Contact – Setting up (or enabling access to) a phoneline / advice service
• Volunteers and support for family carers in the home
• Dealing with Distress at End of Life - psychiatry / improving access to psychological support
• At-home support for patients with neurological diseases, the elderly and those with frailty

The intention is that project outputs would lead to examples of best practice, a framework of ‘what good looks like’, opportunity to share issues and encourage hospices to work together to provide a specialist service.

Grants of up to £40,000 are available to support projects running over a period of 18 months. This allows for up to 3 months setup phase and 12 months project delivery – with a further 3 months to cover any unforeseen delays mid project. 

The grants will enable hospices to initiate or build on programmes of work that will support palliative and end of life care to people dying at home.

Total available funding in this grant round is £500,000. We expect to award between twelve and fifteen grants in this round.

The deadline for applications is 17:00 on Monday, 29 January 2024. Applicants will be informed whether or not they have been successful in mid March 2024.

Eligible organisations must be based in the UK and members of Hospice UK:

• adult hospices
• children’s hospices.

NB: Hospices awarded a grant in the 2022 Rural and Remote Communities programme are not eligible to apply in this round.

Due to funder restrictions this programme is not open to Marie Curie or Sue Ryder hospices.

Only one application per grant round will be considered from each hospice.

The intention is that outputs from funded projects would lead to examples of best practice, a framework of ‘what good looks like’, opportunity to share issues and encourage hospices to work together to provide a specialist service.  Examples of the types of project we could fund include:

• Hospice Care at Home
• Early identification – Hospice and GPs
• Rapid discharge from hospital to home
• 24/7 Single Point of Contact – phoneline / advice service
• Volunteers and support for family carers in the home
• Psychiatry - Dealing with Distress at End of Life.
• At-home support for patients with neurological diseases, the elderly and those with frailty

An outline timetable for the programme is given below. 

• 29 January 2024 - Deadline for submission of applications 17:00
• End February - Major Grants Committee meet to allocate funding
• Mid March - all applicants to be notified of decisions
• End June - First progress report due from grantees
• Early July - Project Lead Day - exact date TBC