St Nicholas Hospice in Bury is celebrating after being awarded £169,569 from the Big Lottery Fund.

A VALUED hospice service can continue thanks to a Lottery grant of nearly £170,000.

The Community Hospice Team at St Nicholas Hospice Care are celebrating after being awarded £169,569 from the Big Lottery Fund.

The service helps patients suffering life-shortening illness to receive specialist care in their own homes where possible.

In 2010 the Big Lottery Fund awarded the Community Hospice Team two years’ funding – £316,545 – but that runs out at the end of this month.

The latest grant will part-fund the team’s core operating costs for a further 12 months, while also helping to secure the project long-term.

Since the service was set up in March 2009, it has supported hundreds of patients and their families.

Barbara Gale, chief executive of the hospice, which is based in Bury St Edmunds, said: “The Community Hospice Team is a vital service, which plays a pivotal role enabling patients to remain in their own homes for as long as possible and still receive dedicated and specialist care.

“So many patients prefer to receive care in their own homes, surrounded by their family, pets and possessions and we believe where possible patients have the right to receive this.

“But while this grant is so wonderful and welcome, it only equates to less than two weeks of our annual operating costs of £4.8million. In these uncertain financial times, we still very much need the support of the entire community.”