This year, Smith Goodfellow are proud to be joining the Manchester Midnight Walk, raising money for St Ann’s Hospice. St Ann’s is an incredible facility that provides vital, end-of-life care grounded in dignity and love. We are keen to help the hospice continue their wonderful work and especially to raise the much-needed funds for their new hospice building.
For our Managing Director, Cathy, and Director of Business Development, Jen, the Manchester Midnight Walk on Friday, May 20, will be a poignant occasion. They will be remembering Cathy’s late mum (Jen’s gran) Gloria Anderson (78), who was a patient at St Ann’s Hospice in 2014. But participating in the walk is not just about remembering loved ones from our past – we want to help safeguard St Ann’s for the benefit of future generations.
We were able to speak to architects, PRP, who have designed the fantastic new facility and it was clear from our conversations with them that an extraordinary degree of thoughtfulness has gone into the designs. From the outside space, which every patient will have access to, to family-friendly rooms where loved ones can gather, the in-patient facilities will offer a space that feels like home whilst also enabling the St Ann’s Team to continue delivering the highest standards of palliative care. Meanwhile, the out-patient block, which will provide expanded facilities for care in the community and also house a specialist Centre for Palliative Care Education, will enable the beneficial impact of St Ann’s outstanding care to be felt far beyond our immediate community.
The build itself is exciting; sensitively designed to sit within the existing landscape and preserve the mature trees on the site, it makes use of technology such as solar PV to ensure the hospice can run as efficiently as possible, whilst the interior prioritises patient comfort and wellbeing by building medical equipment discreetly into the rooms, thereby removing the ‘clinical’ feel one might expect from a hospice building. The project represents a significant contribution to the landscape of architecture in healthcare and we’re honoured to have had the opportunity to gain insight into the in-depth, user-focused approach adopted by PRP.
Speaking about St Ann’s, Cathy said:
“Our family has a long-standing connection with St Ann’s which is a fantastic local facility. Mum was born in Cheadle and ran the information offices in Cheadle Hulme and Bramhall for many years, so St Ann’s was a place she’d definitely have told people about. I grew up in Cheadle Hulme and was involved with the church youth group on Swann Lane, which quite often did things for the hospice – every year we would go carol singing to raise funds.
The palliative care mum received at Heald Green was superb. They made those final weeks of her life bearable because her cancer was fairly horrendous and we’ll also never forget the way they supported us as a family and made us feel welcome. It’s a remarkable place.”
Jen said:
“It’s hard to express just how much of a difference the outstanding care at St Ann’s made, not just to those final weeks for my gran but for our whole family. Knowing she was so wonderfully cared for and treated with respect and dignity meant that we could focus on just spending as much time with her as we could. Even in those difficult days, we were able to sit and laugh together – the team at St Ann’s made that possible.
The plans for the new hospice facility are incredible and I will certainly be proud to be even a tiny part of helping make them a reality.”
The 10k walk, organised by the charity, returns after a three-year absence and it is not too late to take part. The Smith Goodfellow team will join hundreds of other walkers leaving Manchester Cathedral at midnight for a circuit of the city centre.
The moonlit walk costs £16 to enter, £11 for under 18s. For those unable to make it, a virtual walk is £10 and £5.
For more details visit www.mmwalk.org.uk, email events@sah.org.uk, or call 0161 498 3631.
