01/11/2026
“Everybody looks after everybody here.” 💛
Sometimes, the words of the families we care for say more about LOROS than we ever could.
We recently received this incredibly moving letter from the family of Stephen, who spent his final days in our Hospice. In their letter, they share how the kindness, compassion and dignity shown by our staff and volunteers helped bring comfort and reassurance during one of the most difficult times of their lives. We wanted to share their letter with you as this week's , as it captures so beautifully what compassionate care can mean to a family when they need it most.
"Dear LOROS team,
I am writing on behalf of my family to express our profound gratitude for the care given to my father, Stephen Hepple, and to all of us during the final days of his life.
Dad was transferred to LOROS for end-of-life care on 11 September and died peacefully in the early hours of 16 September. Those five days gave us something extraordinarily precious: time to prepare ourselves, as far as anyone can, for what was coming, and the reassurance of knowing that Dad was spending his final days in surroundings of peace, dignity and extraordinary compassion. He died without visible pain or distress, and we will always be deeply grateful for that.
The first thing we noticed was the environment itself. LOROS has somehow managed to take a place which, by its very nature, could feel overwhelmingly sad or clinical and fill it instead with tranquillity, humanity, dignity and even pockets of joy.
The little details feel like they matter enormously. The beautiful handmade blankets. Volunteers quietly popping their heads around the door simply to say hello. A therapy dog arriving at what felt like exactly the right moment. The warmth of the communal areas. The hand made hearts on dad after he had passed. The sense that every element of the building had been thought about not simply from the perspective of healthcare, but from the perspective of what patients and
families actually need when they are frightened, exhausted and grieving.
We were incredibly fortunate that Dad was given a private room, but equally important was the family room which allowed Mum and me to remain with him throughout those five days.
That space was a lifeline for me, as I live 90 miles from Leicester. We had spent the best part of the previous two weeks on Urology Ward 28 at Leicester General Hospital, which is, inevitably, a very different environment. To move from that setting into LOROS was almost impossible to describe. For the first time in days, we felt that we could stop managing, stop watching the clock, stop worrying about what was happening next, and simply be with Dad.
The medical communication we received was exceptional. In particular, Dr Clipsham and Dr Feathers were extraordinary. Both had the ability to communicate the most painful and difficult information with remarkable clarity, humility and dignity. Nothing was softened unnecessarily, but nothing was delivered without compassion. Their explanations were complete enough to remove doubt rather than create it, and at a time when our minds were naturally searching for uncertainty and reasons to worry, that completeness was an enormous gift. They are both remarkable communicators and, from our family’s perspective, remarkable people.
What affected us most deeply, however, was the consistency of the compassion shown by seemingly everybody at LOROS. It did not appear to matter whether somebody was a doctor, a nurse, a care assistant, part of the overnight team, working on reception, cleaning a room or preparing food. There seemed to be a shared understanding that looking after Dad also meant looking after the
people who loved him.
The ladies on the front desk were unfailingly warm and welcoming. The nurses and care assistants were extraordinary. The overnight team somehow managed to combine calmness, professionalism and kindness regardless of the hour. The catering team repeatedly made sure Mum had eaten and was being looked after, often before we had even thought to ask.
Nothing ever seemed to be too much trouble.
I also found myself having some wonderful conversations with various teams at one o’clock in the morning. At hours when the building was quiet and everything felt particularly raw, people who could quite reasonably have simply got on with their work instead stopped, listened, talked and showed genuine care.
There was one moment which, for me, captured something very special about LOROS.
Early one morning I pressed Dad’s buzzer because I wanted somebody to check his
irrigation fluids. The nurses were occupied in another room helping another patient with what I understood to be a fairly complicated move. Rather than leaving us simply to wait, a member of the catering team popped her head around the door and said, in effect, “The nurses are helping somebody else at the moment — is there anything I can help you with right now?”
It was such a small thing, but it really felt significant at the time. This was not somebody saying, “That isn’t my job.” It was somebody seeing a family who might need help and instinctively offering it.
On another evening I had ordered some food after the doors had closed and found a member of staff to ask whether there was any chance somebody could let me out briefly to collect it. We began chatting and she mentioned, almost as a throwaway remark, that she normally worked on another ward. She then said: “Don’t worry, everybody looks after everybody here.”
I don’t think I have ever seen a casual sentence proven more completely. Everybody really does appear to look after everybody at LOROS. That extended most importantly to the way Dad himself was treated. The standard of care he received was extraordinary, but so too was the respect with which it was delivered.
On a number of occasions Dad needed to be repositioned or changed, and I would step outside the room to give him privacy. From the other side of the door I could hear the nurses explaining to him what they were about to do, why they needed to do it, and what would happen next.
By that stage Dad had been unable to communicate for some time. It would have been very easy to assume that those explanations were therefore unnecessary.
Instead, he was spoken to exactly as he should have been: as a person, with dignity, respect and kindness. That has had a profound effect on me.
His physical care was similarly meticulous. Anthony (never Tony), Maria, Crystal and all the other nurses were incredible. Throughout his time at LOROS, Dad was kept clean, comfortable and immaculately presented. In the middle of everything else we were processing, that gave us enormous reassurance that his dignity was being protected even when he could no longer advocate for himself.
The care did not simply stop when Dad died either. The support we have subsequently received from Belinda and her team has been wonderful, and has reinforced the feeling we had throughout our time with you that LOROS understands care in its broadest possible sense.
I realise that an organisation such as yours must receive many letters of gratitude, and I suspect a great many families leave LOROS feeling much as we do. Nevertheless, it feels important to say this properly.
You took what could very easily have been the worst five days of our lives and filled them instead with dignity, compassion, gentleness and respect. We will obviously always remember those days with profound sadness, but they are not memories of Dad suffering or of our family being frightened and alone. They are memories of sitting beside him, talking to him, holding his hand, being cared for ourselves and knowing that the people around us understood the significance of what was happening.
This was my first real experience of palliative care, and during some of the long, quiet early mornings at LOROS I found myself reading a little about the history of the hospice movement and the ideas that shaped it. I came across the words of Dame Cicely Saunders:
“You matter because you are you and you matter until the last moment of your life.” Few sentences could better capture what we experienced. Dad was treated throughout as a person whose dignity, comfort and humanity mattered absolutely, right to the very end — and, just as importantly, we were given the time and space to remain his family while you cared for him.
There is no meaningful way of putting a financial value on work like this. It is perhaps one of the great frustrations of our society that some of the people doing the most profoundly important work imaginable are not remunerated in a way that comes remotely close to reflecting the value of what they give. If salaries were determined by the difference somebody makes to another human being at the most vulnerable point in their life, many of the people we met at LOROS would be among the wealthiest people in the country.
I hope, therefore, that every member of your organisation understands that the value of what they do extends far beyond a job description or a payslip. The skill matters enormously, of course, but so does the humanity: the extra conversation in a corridor, the hand on a shoulder, remembering to feed an exhausted relative, explaining something to a patient who may no longer be able to answer, or simply recognising that somebody might need a little kindness at three o’clock in the morning.
Please pass our gratitude to everybody who cared for Dad and for us during those five days. We will never forget what LOROS gave our family at the end of his life, and we will always be thankful that this was where Dad was able to spend his final days.
We look forward to supporting your fundraising endeavours in the future."
