The Devonshire Freemasons have donated £1,065 to St Luke’s Hospice.

Every year Devonshire’s Freemasons visit the hospices around the region to give a donation to what they regard as such an important service to the community. This year deputy leader Nick Ball and his wife Gill visited St Luke’s in Plymouth.

Sarah Wallis and Peter Ward are the partnership leads at St Lukes and they briefed Nick and Gill on the key points from the covid period, costs of running the charity and expectations for the future. They said:

Due to the pandemic St Luke’s is expecting to see a 25% rise in demand due to lack of access to NHS services for so many in the region.

St Luke’s catchment is huge — going from East Cornwall to the South Hams and up to Tavistock. It has around 2,000 patients a year.

It costs £10-mllion a year to run, with only 33% from government, the rest is fundraising. Although the big fundraising events are only now starting to happen again, the community hasn’t stopped in its ‘At Home’ events.

Hospice shops are being streamlined, and the St Luke’s lottery brings in around £1-million a year.

It costs around £1,000 for ‘At Home’ care, and £11,000 for a ‘hospice bed’.

More than 50% of care is now given in patient’s homes, with around 25% being in main hospitals.

Nick Ball said: ‘Every year we come here and are always impressed by their drive to get the fundraising to get the services for those that need it, here in the South West. We hope our donation of £1,065 helps in some small way.’