Blythe House Hospice is proud to announce that it has been awarded Derbyshire LGBT+ Accreditation, recognising its commitment to inclusivity and support for the LGBT+ community.
John Yates-Harold, Project Officer at Derbyshire LGBT+ and Assessor for the accreditation, praised the hospice for its dedication to fostering a welcoming and safe environment.
John said: ‘My warmest congratulations to the amazing team at Blythe House Hospice. This accreditation was a pleasure to award and is a testament to all the hard work the staff and volunteers have put in, and recognition of everything that cascades down through the whole team.’
The accreditation was awarded at the end of February, aligning with the conclusion of LGBT+ History Month.
Laura Savile, HR and Volunteer Manager at Blythe House Hospice, emphasised the importance of this milestone: ‘This achievement underscores Blythe House Hospice’s ongoing mission to provide truly inclusive care for patients, families, and our dedicated team. We are committed to ensuring that everyone who interacts with the hospice feels welcomed, supported, and valued.’
While Blythe House Hospice has always embraced inclusivity, the team recognised the importance of making this commitment more visible. Inspired by the Hospice UK paper “I Just Want to Be Me” and conversations with Derbyshire LGBT+ at Buxton Pride in 2022, the hospice began its formal accreditation journey in August 2023.
The process focused on six key standards: Welcoming, Consulting, Collecting, Analysing, Embedding, and Delivering. Over the past 18 months, the hospice has taken significant steps to meet these criteria, including installing LGBT+ window stickers, pronouns in email signatures, making stronger community ties, adopting inclusive application and referral forms, and an anonymised recruitment process.
John visited the hospice on Tuesday 11th March alongside colleague, Ian Robson, CEO of Derbyshire LGBT+ to officially hand over a commemorative plaque to Laura, as well as Shane O’Reilly, CEO at Blythe House Hospice.
The hospice remains dedicated to ensuring its services are welcoming and accessible to all, reinforcing its role as a truly inclusive care provider for the local community.
A new initiative at Blythe House Hospice is giving an insight into the wide range of services we provide across North Derbyshire.
Sarah
Talking tours are available monthly at our base in Chapel-en-le-Frith.
Open to health care professionals, carers, and the general public, the events will provide information about the care and support available to members of the community and their families, who are facing life-limiting illness.
Sarah Sewell, the charity’s Community Engagement Officer, said: ‘People often have this misconception about what they think our hospice is. These new tours are about taking away that fear of the unknown and giving our community and healthcare professionals an insight into what we do, the services we provide and their benefits.’
The Talking Tours launched in January and have received positive feedback from attendees including: ‘Thank you so much to all the staff at Blythe House who took time out of their busy days to provide us with such useful information. I personally found the Talking Tour very helpful and informative. I will certainly be in touch to refer and signpost our clients to your services.’
The informal tours include a walk around the hospice; the chance to chat with the hospice chief executive; clinical teams; fundraising, volunteer and retail staff, and an opportunity to ask questions.
Sarah said: ‘We will show you around the hospice and tell you how we deliver services in the Community Hub to support people from the point of diagnosis with a life-limiting illness.
‘Our team will provide information on how we provide tailored individual care in people’s homes, to allow the patient to die at home if they wish to do so, and the support we provide to their families at a time when they need it most.’
The events also give those interested in supporting the hospice an opportunity to chat with the fundraising and retail team about their work and how they could get involved to help raise vital funds to support the charity’s work.
The next Talking Tours are set to take place on Thursdays 20th March and 17th April – and will continue throughout 2025.
See future dates, find out more or book your space on a tour.
Over 1,050 runners have raised a record-breaking £44,500 for hospice care, after the return of a prestigious 10k run in the grounds of the Chatsworth estate.
We hosted our annual Chatsworth 10k on Sunday 22nd September, with over 900 runners taking part. Following the longer race, 150 people including children and families, took on a 3k route.
The rolling fundraising total of over £44,000 is the highest amount ever for the event, since it was established back in 2008.
Adrian Mussett from the Colchester Harriers Athletics Club finished in first place, crossing the finish line after an incredibly speedy 35 minutes and 15 seconds. Sara Hallhort was the first female finisher, finishing sixth overall, after 38 minutes and 28 seconds.
Rachael Gee, fundraising and events coordinator at Blythe House Hospice, said: ‘The Chatsworth 10k is always such a fantastic day and I look forward to it in the hospice fundraising calendar every year. It simply would not be possible to put on such an event without such incredible support from our volunteers and sponsors; our race participants and of course their cheering loved ones. Thank you so much to everyone who was involved in any capacity, ensuring we’ve raised a truly spectacular amount of money for hospice care across North Derbyshire.
‘My immense gratitude goes to headline sponsor, BRM Solicitors, whose support for many years now means that a staggering amount of money has gone directly to local patient care. We’d also like to say a big thank you to our other corporate partners for their sponsorship and gifts in kind: The Eye and Ear Place; TF Jackson in Buxton; iBottles of Chinley; John F Hunt Power; Bloomers of Bakewell; Holdsworth Food from Tideswell; Up and Running; and Buxton Water.
‘We would like to thank all the amazing volunteers for their help in making the event happen, and to all the runners for taking part and raising vital funds for Blythe House Hospice; we hope you have a fantastic time!’
Next year’s event is set to take place on Sunday 21st September 2025. Super early bird registration is open now, and runners can register for just £22 for the 10k, or £7 for the 3k fun run, before Sunday 6th October 2024: register online now.
Full results from the 10k run on Sun 22nd September available to see here.
