Brighton and Hove hospice charity Martlets gets £100k for 24-hour helpline

Brighton and Hove’s hospice care charity Martlets has received £100,000 to fund a 24-hour patient and carer helpline.

The money has come from Barclays 100 x 100 Community Relief fund, part of the Barclays COVID-19 Community Aid Package, launched to provide support in the heart of local communities.

Martlets was granted one of 25 donations having successfully demonstrated it was able to provide impactful, on-the-ground support for the community through its helpline service.

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The helpline is a 24-hour, 7-day a week telephone service, staffed by trained clinical teams providing assistance to patients with terminal illness and their families and carers. Calls to the existing helpline almost doubled from 24,245 in 2019/20 to 43,323 during 2020/2021.

Susi Owusu, partnerships and philanthropy manager at Martlets, said: “The news of this funding from Barclays has been wonderful and come at such an important time for us as we try to meet the rising demand for our services. This donation will transform our capacity to staff our hub so that we can provide a truly wrap around specialist service for people in need.

“We know that 2am is a very lonely place when you are caring for someone who is dying. We also know that giving the right clinical advice and support can help to keep patients out of hospital and save them distress, enabling them to stay at home where they want to be.

"This 24-hour support has become increasingly important as health resources are stretched and there continues to be huge pressure on the NHS. Our aim is to be there for whenever our patients and their loved ones need us, and we are so grateful to Barclays for this incredible donation to help us run this service at full capacity.”

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