A statement from Weston Hospicecare Chief Executive, Paul Winspear, on Pride day: 

“June is national Pride month 2021, and today 28 June is national Pride day. This is relevant to Weston Hospicecare for two reasons:

1. Our palliative care is for anyone and everyone within the area we serve, determined by clinical need and nothing else.
2. We are an equal opportunities employer, meaning we employ a person based on their ability, skills, knowledge and experience without being influenced by other personal characteristics.

In both cases, whether in the provision of care and welcoming people to the hospice, or as an employer of staff and provider of volunteering opportunities, we should treat every individual the same regardless of their age, disability, gender, marital status, race, religion or belief, or sexual characteristics.

The LGBTQ community already experiences significant prejudice. Things have changed a lot over the past few decades and continue to change, mostly for the better thankfully but it seems to be three steps forward, two steps back.

We believe our Hospice is free from such prejudice, but are we? Can we be sure of that? And even if we are, have we done enough and are we still doing enough to reassure the LGBTQ community that our end-of-life care is equally for them without judgement or censorship, and simultaneously to be an employer of choice for this sector of our community? It seems to me we have to keep reaching out, reassuring and demonstrating that we mean what we say: no prejudice here.

Last week I was extremely privileged to spend an hour with a special gentleman named John. Many of you will know John, first as one of our fantastic Reception volunteers but more recently as a patient. John has Myeloma, he is undergoing palliative treatment and awaiting a stem cell transplant, and is receiving care from our Community Nurse Specialist team and our Complementary Therapy team, with care from other providers too. With his prior agreement, I interviewed John to find out what his experiences have been of Weston Hospicecare, first as a volunteer and then as a patient, and also as a person in a same-sex marriage to ask how he and his husband feel they have been accepted by the Hospice. With the kind permission of John and Danny, our conversation was recorded and is now available as a podcast here:

Please join me in wishing a happy Pride day to all our staff, volunteers, patients and loved ones who identify with the LGBTQ community.”