Forest Holme Hospice in Poole cares for around 1,500 families a year across Poole, Wimborne and the Isle of Purbeck, supporting patients and their loved ones through advanced cancer and other life limiting illnesses. It is part of University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, however relies on the local community to help raise over £1 million a year to deliver the highest level of care when it is needed most.

Behind those figures is a team of consultants, doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants, counsellors and therapists looking after people, and the families beside them, through some of the hardest days they will ever face.

In amongst all of that, something as small as a pot of ice cream can matter more than you might expect.

As one of the hospice nurses put it, it is often the one thing patients can still manage when appetite is poor and swallowing has become difficult.

Jasmine found this out with her dad.

“The last thing my lovely dad could eat before passing, and I was lucky enough to feed him it too,”

she told us. “I hope Purbeck know how much meaning can come from that one little pot of ice cream.”

Jacqui’s husband John, cared for at Forest Holme with oesophageal cancer, found the same.

“Your ice cream was one of the only foods he could manage to eat,”

she said. “You’ll never know how much it helps many poorly patients.”

It is not only for patients nearing the end of their lives.

Sacha used to bring her two year old son along to visits, and remembers the nurses always offering him an ice cream too, a small kindness that made a hard visit easier for both of them.

And it is not always a solemn moment either. Fiona still smiles remembering her dad’s visits, and how excited he would get on the days his tub had a hidden chocolate dinosaur waiting at the bottom.

None of this is down to the ice cream itself. It is down to a hospice team who notice that a favourite flavour, offered at the right moment, can be a genuine comfort, and who make space for that alongside everything else they do.

We have simply kept the freezer stocked for the past eight years, so that when the team want to offer someone a small pleasure on a hard day, it is there.

We have been privileged to provide the ice cream for Forest Holme for the past eight years. Knowing it can mean this much to patients and families means more to us than we can properly put into words, and we are looking forward to continuing to support them for many years to come.

If you would like to support the wider work of Forest Holme Hospice, you can find out more at forestholmehospice.org.uk.