Did you know... More than 100,000 people volunteer in hospices across the UK

First round of seedcorn grants supported by the Burdett Trust for Nursing

18 May 2010

Nine seedcorn grants totalling just under £55,000 were awarded for work to investigate ways of widening access to hospice care.

This grant programme supports innovative nurse-led projects which aim to:

develop and enhance the leadership abilities of the applicant
increase access to hospice care for people for whom access has previously been limited.

What was funded

Grants of up to £7,500 were made for work lasting up to fifteen months. See the table below for a summary of grants awarded.

The programme has included projects which:

explore the palliative care needs of people with dementia
investigate how best to change services to better accommodate patients with varied faith and religious needs.

First round grants
Hospice name	Project title	Amount awarded
Total		£54,440
Dorothy House Hospice Care (Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire)	End of life care for people with dementia: the challenge for specialist palliative care	£7,500
Greenwich & Bexley Cottage Hospice (London)	Building a closer partnership between dementia and specialist palliative care services in Bexley	£7,434
Hospice of St Francis (Berkhamsted, Essex)	Researching the end-of-life education needs of nursing home staff and how it is affected by care-mix	£5,396
Keech Hospice Care (Luton)	To address the issues surrounding the provision of palliative care for patients with varied faith and belief needs in Luton and south Bedfordshire	£4,310
Rowcroft Hospice (Torquay, Devon)	Reaching out: using partnerships to investigate early interventions in the provision of palliative care and planning for dementia patients and their carers	£7,500
St Catherine's Hospice (Preston)	Implementation of a collaborative heart failure assessment and rehabilitation service in the hospice	£2,300
St Christopher's Hospice (London)	Development of an epidural/intrathecal competency framework, nurse training programme and patient/carer information leaflet	£7,500
St Margaret's Somerset Hospice (Taunton)	Exploring Dying Matters within Secondary Schools	£5,000
The Rowans Hospice (Waterlooville, Hampshire)	Fair access for all: linking with under represented groups within the community to learn more about the reasons why some people are not referred for hospice care	£7,500

Further information

Find out about the two types of grants available on the Widening Access through Nurse Leadership grant programme.

Amendment to the page

After the award, one of the individuals was unable to carry out their proposed work due to changes in circumstances so did not take up the offer of a grant.