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Theme: Our care and services

Remembering loved ones with St Ann’s Forget Me Not appeal

June 22, 2023 | 3:58pm

Will you join our Forget Me Not appeal to help the patients and family members who need the support of St Ann’s Hospice?

As we approach summer, for many this is a time of reflection in the sunshine and time spent in the garden, which is a time to come together and remember the ones you love.

This summer you can attend one of the Forget Me Not celebration events as well as dedicating a flower in memory of a loved one in St Ann’s Hospice’s online Memory Meadow. This allows you to share your photos and memories with family and friends.

Patrick Clark, Senior Counsellor for St Ann’s Hospice, is speaking at the celebration events in aid of the Forget Me Not appeal. Patrick says: “My hope is that our Forget Me Not celebrations will bring some comfort and encouragement as we come together to celebrate the lives of those who have gone from our sight, but not from our memory.

“This is the first year that our Let’s Talk Team is leading the Forget Me Not celebration events, and we will be around at the end of the events to speak to those who wish to learn more about how we can help.”


Many people find the gardens at our hospice sites are a place of tranquility and a space to reflect. The timing of this year’s celebration and the Forget Me Not appeal, being in the summer, gives us the opportunity to see those gardens in full bloom as we remember our loved ones.


Patrick Clark, Senior Counsellor, St Ann’s Hospice

St Ann’s Hospice provides counselling, bereavement support and psychological support given through the Let’s Talk service.

The trained team of counsellors and assistant practitioners are there to support those in need of the service. The Let’s Talk Team helps enable bereaved people to try to live the best life they can from today, knowing that someone’s loss might always be with them.

Patrick says: “We provide support through creating a safe space to share, active listening, being open and honest, having an unconditional positive regard and empathy.”


We welcome referrals from family and friends of people who have a connection to the hospice to our service. The service is free and available for anyone who has had treatment at the hospice or is a family member, carer or friend who is grieving someone they’ve lost.


Patrick Clark, Senior Counsellor, St Ann’s Hospice

The Forget Me Not services at both hospices are open to everyone as an opportunity for reflection and celebration of the lives of loved ones. They will take place on Saturday 1st July and will be led by the Let’s Talk Team, part of the hospice’s Patient and Family Support Team.

If you would like to attend either of these special events, please register for Heald Green here or Little Hulton here, or call us on 0161 498 3631.

You can support the Forget Me Not appeal in other ways, such as purchasing a bespoke stained glass forget me not suncatcher to display in your garden, home or place of remembrance; or donating to the hospice by making a dedication on the online Memory Meadow. All details of the appeal can be found here.

Junior doctors strike update

March 8, 2023 | 3:13pm

The junior doctor members of the British Medical Association (BMA) are expected to participate in a national 72-hour strike on Monday 13th, Tuesday 14th and Wednesday 15th March.

We want to assure you that we have made every effort to ensure that patient safety and wellbeing will be maintained throughout this period. Our dedicated team of medical staff, including consultants and senior doctors, will be working closely together to provide the highest quality medical care to our patients.

We will do everything in our power to minimise any disruption and encourage you to contact your hospice team if you have any concerns or questions.

We are committed to maintaining open communication with our patients, their families, and our staff during this time, and we will update you with any more news.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation during this time.

What do the new hospice plans for Heald Green mean for our hospice in Little Hulton?

January 23, 2023 | 11:59am

Depending on where you live, you may not know that St Ann’s has two hospices in Greater Manchester – one in Little Hulton, Salford and one in Heald Green, Stockport. 

Understandably, most people know and care deeply about the hospice that is closest to where they live – especially if it was where we cared for a loved one in their final days. 

Both of our hospice sites are hugely important to us as we plan for the future care needs of Greater Manchester and parts of Cheshire and look to safeguard hospice care for future generations. 

The benefits of having two hospices in Greater Manchester

Operating more than one hospice site means that our care can be provided more locally and patients and loved ones never need travel too far to come to our hospice.  

With the pressure on NHS beds and an ageing population, we know that there will continue to be demand for our services and the need for both hospices. 

Operating two hospices in Greater Manchester also gives us advantages of size and scale. No hospice is unaffected by the current economic climate including the pressure on household budgets and rising energy costs. But being a bigger organisation operating across a larger patch means we are better placed to weather the storm than we would otherwise be. 

Investing for future generations

We have recently invested in our hospice in Little Hulton, including re-imagining the reception, cafe and outdoor areas so that patients and their loved ones can enjoy time together in a more relaxing, modern environment. We have also upgraded our medical equipment, beds, and furniture in our Being You Centre and family rooms. 

The next investment in our hospices is a purpose-built new hospice in Heald Green. Our current hospice there occupies an old Victorian building that has served us well, but which is now showing its age and costing us many thousands each year in expensive repairs and maintenance. Unlike our more modern hospice in Little Hulton, it has very few private bedrooms for patients and very limited outdoor space. 

The new hospice will include individual en-suite rooms and access to private outdoor terraces.  It will have a brand-new education centre which will be used to train all our staff in the latest advancements in end-of-life and palliative care.  

The improved facilities will also mean we can welcome many more health professionals to our specialist training. We will be able to rent rooms and have a bigger coffee shop that is open to the public – all providing valuable revenue streams and giving us money to invest in providing exceptional care at both our hospices, as well as in the community. 

We hope that no matter where you live, you will support our plans for a new hospice in Heald Green. But rest assured, our Little Hulton hospice remains as important to St Ann’s as ever. 

Let’s Build It Together

There are lots of ways you can get involved – with your help, we can build our new Heald Green hospice.

Find out more




Rachel McMillan on the importance of hospices

December 12, 2022 | 4:55pm

We have had health and social care devolution in Greater Manchester since 2016 – that means that there is now more say at a regional level about how health budgets should be spent. The changes are intended to give local people more say in how their care is provided too.

St Ann’s Hospice is one of seven adult hospices in Greater Manchester. We are charities and not part of the NHS in the same way the hospitals are, but we work collaboratively as part of the wider health and care system and the NHS contributes towards some of our care costs. On average hospices receive a third of their income from the NHS – we rely on the generosity of the public to keep us going.

We are all going to die. And we all want the best possible care for ourselves and for the people that we love at the end of their lives. There has been a big change this year which means that the importance of good end-of-life and palliative care has been recognised by the government in the way it never was before. The Health and Care Act means that for the first time it is now a legal requirement to provide palliative care in England where local people need it. That is intended to end a postcode lottery where there may be better end-of-life care in some areas more than others. It also means that the vital role of hospices for people at the end of their lives can’t be ignored or forgotten about.

An important part of my job is to make sure that we are shouting from the rooftops about the excellent care provided by St Ann’s and the other hospices across Greater Manchester, united and with one voice.

In October I was delighted to welcome Sir Richard Leese, who is chair of the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board, and Mark Fisher, Chief Executive of Greater Manchester Integrated Care, to our hospice in Heald Green to talk about the ambitious plans we have to help transform end-of-life care for residents, including by building a much-needed new hospice for the people of Greater Manchester next door to our existing hospice in Heald Green.

We also talked about how we are collaborating with the health and care system in Greater Manchester more than ever before. We all know that the pandemic brought huge challenges and devastation to our doors, but I also saw first-hand everyone in health and care working together as hard as possible to get people in the right place at the right time to receive the right care. Through a mutual aid philosophy we worked closely with our colleagues across all the hospices in Greater Manchester, in hospitals and care homes to go above and beyond to make this happen. At our inpatient units in Heald Green and Little Hulton we can look after patients with complex palliative and end-of-life care needs, with a wide range of symptoms to manage. Improving patient flow in the wider health system is so important – it’s only by better care in the community, including in hospices, that precious hospital time and beds will be freed up.

We are a charity and not a NHS hospice which means we have to fundraise for a large proportion of our income. Our costs are going up all the time. We are not shielded from the huge increase in energy costs for example. At the same time many of our valued supporters will have less disposable income due to the cost-of-living crisis. There are difficult times ahead but as one of the UK’s biggest hospices we are better able to weather the storm than most.

Lots will be changing in the months ahead. What remains constant is that the compassionate end-of-life care delivered by hospices including St Ann’s remains as vital as ever. We hope you will continue to support us into the future and thank you for all your help and support to date.

Could you donate or fundraise for our Build It Together appeal?

There are lots of ways you can get involved – with your help, we can build our new Heald Green hospice.

Find out more




Understanding occupational therapy

November 11, 2022 | 4:43pm

Occupational therapy is a vital part of the care that hospices provide, but not something that everyone always understands or talks about very much.

In fact, St Ann’s Hospice is quite unusual in that Emma Barclay, who is Head of Clinical Services at our Heald Green hospice, is a registered occupational therapist – which we think is something to celebrate this Occupational Therapy (OT) Week.

But what is occupational therapy and what difference does it make?

Emma explains: “Occupational therapy is finding out what people want to do and helping them to achieve it through rehabilitation or by adaptation. The philosophy is all about doing and being engaged in purposeful activity.”


We are all doing beings. COVID made many of us stop what we normally do and that gives you a clue about how it feels when you suddenly can’t do what you’re used to. We help people do the activities they want to do, which might be something as small as being able to get out of bed on their own, but which can make a real difference to their mood and how they feel.


Emma Barclay, Head of Clinical Services (Heald Green) and OT

Physiotherapist Emma Barclay

“One of our patients we helped was feeling too tired to have tea with her children when she came home from school and it was really upsetting her. We looked at a way of redistributing her energy during the day so that she had a window of energy to have that normal family teatime together. It’s a small thing, but also really big at the same time. That’s why we need occupational therapy at the hospice.”

Most patients who are admitted to our inpatient units at either Heald Green or Little Hulton will be referred to support from our team of occupational therapists, for things like being able to get comfortable in bed, for support with sleep and rest, or for being able to walk outside in the gardens.

Emma adds: “We’re in a hospice. We’re not going to make fatigue go away but we can help to get it under control. We ask people what they value and what is important to them. For some people they want to do the ironing, for some people they aren’t bothered about doing the shopping but they really want to be able to do some gardening. So, we look at what’s possible and where they can save energy for the things they really want to do.”

The Being You Centre

Did you know that if you are aged 18 or over and have a life-limiting illness you can refer yourself to our Being You Centre and benefit from our support?

Find out more




Celebrating our Allied Health Professionals this AHPs’ Day

October 14, 2022 | 5:13pm

Friday 14th October 2022 marks this year’s AHPs’ Day, a time to recognise our St Ann’s AHP family for everything they do in providing outstanding care and support to our patients.

At St Ann’s we employ 11 AHPs across three of the 14 recognised AHP professions; physiotherapists, occupational therapists (OTs) and a dietitian. They hold a range of positions at our hospices in Heald Green and Little Hulton, including team leaders, heads of department and our specialist lymphoedema team, and all play a vital role in patient treatment, rehabilitation and support.

To celebrate AHPs’ Day and improve awareness of the important work of our brilliant AHPs, they shared what they love most about being an AHP.


I think for me it is the variety of situations I can and have influenced positively currently at the hospice, and throughout my career as an OT. It feels very powerful to enable a person to achieve an important goal, particularly when they have a life-limiting illness. Very often there are challenges to overcome and the goal is achieved not as first planned… The privilege is having the opportunity to do this in my role every day.


Fran Brown, Rehab Team Leader and Occupational Therapist (OT)


I love being able to spend time getting to know people and their loved ones, finding out what makes them feel like themselves, what would make their lives better, and what matters most to them. Then working with patients, families, and colleagues to put a plan together. It’s a privilege to be part of helping others work towards achieving a meaningful goal.


Tina Peel, Being You Centre Team Leader (Little Hulton) and Occupational Therapist


It feels like a privilege to add value and quality to life when someone’s days are short in the palliative phase of their illness.

I’ve been able to help patients who are keen to continue to sit out of bed to continue activities that are important to them, even if they are approaching end of life. By using my training and using specialist chairs and equipment to move them safely, they have been able to do this, which helps them to feel in control and remain calm.



Bobby Magee, Advanced Physiotherapist


I love being an AHP because we have a holistic approach to patient assessment and treatment. We work with people to prioritise their needs and focus on supporting them with their goals. I enjoy educating people about nutrition so they are empowered to improve their diet, whether this is to improve health, rediscover the enjoyment of eating food or to support their functional and quality-of-life goals.


Catherine Voyce, Dietitian


I love being an Occupational Therapist and part of the AHP team because every day is different and your career can go in lots of different directions! When in a clinical role I enjoyed really getting to understand what made a person tick and supporting them to achieve what mattered to them in a timely way at the end of their lives. Now in a non-clinical role I enjoy using my core OT skills to both support and develop team members and also influence clinical strategy to help achieve the best possible outcomes for people that access hospice services.


Emma Barclay, Head of Clinical Services (Heald Green) and Occupational Therapist

Physiotherapist Emma Barclay


A few things I like about being an AHP are the education aspect involved in patient interaction; making positive changes to a person and improving their quality of life and death; using tried and tested, well-researched treatment strategies alongside moving with the times and more modern treatments; adapting to individual patients and their differences and challenges – gaining their trust can make all the difference; and the multi-disciplinary working with other professionals.


Alison Bennett, Specialist Physiotherapist

The importance of Hospice Care Week

October 11, 2022 | 4:43pm

This Hospice Care Week I want to raise awareness of the vital work and services St Ann’s Hospice provides to so many people across many of the Greater Manchester communities.

I qualified as a Nurse in 2000 and have worked in many hospices and hospitals across Greater Manchester. Since 2011 I have been a clinical nurse specialist in palliative care and joined the St Ann’s team as a trainee Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP) in 2020 during the pandemic – which was quite the baptism of fire! I completed the two-year accelerated master’s programme and qualified as an ACP this year.

Often people say they don’t know how I do this job, but simply by helping and being there for people, that keeps me going. There is so much positive feedback from staff and families that you support, so it really makes my job worthwhile.


I want this Hospice Care Week to change people’s perceptions of hospices and debunk many of the myths around them. People are terrified of us because of the old-fashioned idea that people come here to die and that we only pave the way for this to take place. But that is not the reality at all.


Damian Lacey, Advanced Clinical Practitioner

Treatments have improved with people living much longer and fuller lives with their illnesses. A lot of people come to us for symptom control to be able to live with their illness, which is why it is so important to stress that hospices are about alleviating suffering for people.

St Ann’s works to provide not just medical plans but also non-pharmacological ways to manage life, by providing practical support to access better equipment at home and educating patients and families that we support. We provide talking therapies and complementary therapies as well as outpatient care in the form of our Being You Centre.

Hospices are so much more than just advising on medicines to patients!

Getting this message across to the wider public is so important in changing people’s thought processes around hospices and what they are used for. St Ann’s is a great vehicle for change to support people with care planning and are vital providers of education for professionals caring for patients with life-limiting illnesses and their loved ones.

It is also so significant to de-medicalise death. We’ve become so frightened to talk about the end of our lives, but opening conversations to turn dying not necessarily into a negative thing should be prioritised. Death should not be viewed as dark and full of terror; we should stop hiding away from it so we can prepare ourselves through supporting one another.

Hospice Care Week highlights the importance of providing the best environment possible to care for and support patients in. St Ann’s Hospice’s building in Heald Green has outlived its purpose and we are so excited for the new building so that we can better connect to outdoor spaces and improve the care of all our patients.

St Ann’s Build It Together campaign is raising the final £2 million that we need to build our brand new hospice in Heald Green, replacing our current Victorian building which is in urgent need of replacement as it needs continual and costly repairs.

This will see our current hospice in Heald Green replaced with a purpose-built facility costing over £22m in total, with larger landscaped grounds and many improvements, including 21 individual en-suite private bedrooms.

The campaign, which launched in June, has already raised £420,000 and we are urging people across Greater Manchester to get involved.

Could you donate or fundraise for our Build It Together appeal?

There are lots of ways you can get involved – with your help, we can build our new Heald Green hospice.

Find out more




Grieving during times of national mourning

September 14, 2022 | 5:25pm

Our thoughts and prayers are with our late Queen and her family at this extremely sad time.

The death of Queen Elizabeth II, the country’s longest-serving monarch, has affected us all in different ways.

Some feel the sense of loss far more deeply than others. The death of a public figure – in this case, probably the most famous person in the world – can evoke personal memories of grief.

We feel sadness for The Queen herself. You might feel like you knew her personally; she was someone you admired; there could be a fear of change after 70 years of a constant in our national identity and maybe also loss for someone who has died in our own lives.

We are experiencing collective grief, as a nation, for The Queen. This might be comforting to know that you are not alone in your experience of grief at this time. This is different from individual grief and may give you the opportunity to express personal loss that you felt unable to share at the time.

Perhaps the biggest impact that I have seen in sessions, is on those living by themselves who are feeling slightly lonely.

It might feel, for some, that there is no escape via the media at the moment, which is perfectly understandable due to the incredible and long life of our glorious Queen. Every time they turn on the television, or read a newspaper, they are met by blanket coverage about The Queen.

Her passing has affected all ages. Parents, children and grandchildren are all feeling the pain and heartache.

My message is that is perfectly okay to feel that sense of loss.

There is no right or wrong way to react, whatever your connection with The Queen, who may remind you of your grandma.

Responses to grief are unique and personal to an individual.

If you need help, speak to a loved one in the first instance, if possible. It could be a friend, family member or a neighbour. During our collective grief, whoever you reach out to might be grateful for the chance to speak to someone too.

Professional help is also available. Call the Samaritans helpline on 116 123 (available day and night), or visit www.cruse.org.uk for bereavement support (Cruse also have a helpline, but it’s not 24/7). Silverline, for older people, includes 24/7 helpline.

They can help you through the here and now.

If your grief lasts longer than you expect – or your reaction is different to what you imagined – services such as our Let’s Talk Service at St Ann’s is available for family and friends of someone who has accessed our services.

If your situation feels more serious, I recommend counselling or psychological support.

The Queen was held in enormous esteem and loved by so many. Our relationship with her would have differed from one person to the next.

There is a shared universal respect for who she was and what she did.

During this period of mourning, it is perhaps appropriate to remind ourselves of a few famous quotations:


To weep is to make less the depth of grief.


William Shakespeare


How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.


Winnie the Pooh


Grieving does not make you imperfect, it makes you human.


Sarah Dessen, American author

Bereavement support

Many of us welcome talking to others when a person who is close has died – and usually rely on friends and family. But sometimes it can help to talk to someone who is not so closely involved. This is where we can help.

Find out more