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Richard Desmond, John Culshaw, Andrew Sachs and Glenda Jackson celebrate the refurbishment with Marie Curie hospice staff |
Celebs open £3m hospice building
Stars turn out to celebrate Marie Curie centre refurbishment programme
CELEBRITY friends, volunteers and staff gathered at the Marie Curie hospice in Hampstead on Tuesday to celebrate a £3million refurbishment to the 30-year-old building.
Hospice friends actor Andrew Sachs and comedian John Culshaw, who both donated money to the refurbishment project, were just two of the well-known faces on hand to welcome in the new building that makes at the Lyndhurst Gardens institution.
The programme of improvements, which included replacing the windows and the heating and ventilation units, were part of an overhaul aimed at making the hospice feel more like a hotel than a hospital.
Marie Curie national chief executive Thomas Hughes-Hallett said: “Marie Curie needs to set the standards the rest of the NHS should aspire to in terms of caring for people that are dying.”
The ethos at the hospice is to set people “on their feet again” and make them strong enough to go home.
Of the 600 people who visit the hospice each year, half will return home.
The hospice’s medical director Adrian Tookman described the centre as one of 18 test sites for “survivorship” in the country, designated by the government as a place to monitor the success of new schemes.
Mr Sachs, who grew up in Hampstead and now lives in Kilburn, attended the bash in place of his wife Melody, who donated £10,000 to the hospice following the death of a close family friend there.
He said: “The work the staff do here is unbelievable. I hope I die here – you hear a lot of people say that.”
Glenda Jackson MP and Haverstock Arms publican – and former TFI Friday pub landlord Andrew Carey – were also in attendance at the event, while newspaper proprietor Richard Desmond, whose band RD Crusaders is fronted by The Who star Roger Daltrey, raised £1m for the project, also turned out to offer his support.
The hospice survives on fundraising and donations alone – and is still £43,000 short of its refurbishment budget. |
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