North London Hospice’s Compassionate Neighbours scheme has received praise in the Barnet Adults and Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee’s report. The committee complimented the hospice on the scheme which has continued to go from strength to strength.

Compassionate Neighbours is the hospice’s volunteer-led support programme for people who have a life-limiting condition, offering them emotional and social support to stay connected to their community, helping reduce loneliness and isolation. Compassionate Neighbours are trained to offer their time, companionship and support to people living in their community.

The personalised ‘menu of support’ from our Compassionate Neighbours is provided free of charge and includes one-to-one support with a trained volunteer as well as access to a range of wellbeing and support groups and activities. You can find out more here.

Suzie Long, Director of People and Culture at North London Hospice said: “I am so pleased to hear about the difference that our Compassionate Neighbours are making in the community, supporting people every day in such a meaningful way.

“Recognising the pivotal community work Compassionate Neighbours do is vital, especially given the challenges of volunteer recruitment, demonstrates our CORE values and aligns with our strategic commitment to value our volunteers. Thank you to everyone who was involved.”

The hospice’s Quality Account, published in June this year, also included compliments from people using our Compassionate Neighbours scheme. One family member said: “I wanted to let you know how wonderful and absolutely lovely and what a joy our Compassionate Neighbour has been. They are amazing with our mum when they visit and this is such respite support for both her and us, it is wonderful that our mum enjoys their company so much. We are so grateful to Compassionate Neighbours for supporting our family.”

You can register your interest and find out more about Compassionate Neighbours by filling in this short application form.

Our next upcoming in-person Compassionate Neighbours training course will be taking place on 11 and 12 September at North London Hospice Head Office.

You can come along to the course to find out more – it’s completely flexible and how much or how little you get involved is up to you.

For more information please email: cn@northlondonhospice.co.uk – and please do share this with anyone who you think may be interested.