Text Santa: How money raised will 'Help the Hospices'

  • Central
The countdown is well and truly on for Text Santa. Credit: ITV News Central

This week we're counting down the days to ITV's Christmas fundraiser,Text Santa. The finale is this friday night (20th Dec) on ITV.

Ant and Dec, Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, and Christine Bleakley and Paddy McGuiness will host a star studded show featuring many well known faces from the stage and screen.

Six UK charities will benefit from your donations this year. They are Age UK, Barnardos, Clic Sargent, British Heart Foundation, Help the Hospices and Beat Bullying.

Tonight on ITV News Central we look at the work of Help the Hospices.

One in three of us will be touched by hospice care at some point in our lives. They dont just care for people with terminal or life limiting illnesses.

They also support the whole family and provide care for people in their own home.

37 year old Simon Welch is a day patient at St Giles Hospice in Staffordshire. Simon was diagnosed with brain cancer in February.

He comes to the hospice once a week, and with the help of the nursing staff, has been able to regain enough strength to return to work a few hours a week, something he'd really missed, since his diagnosis.

His eleven year old son was struggling to cope with dads illness, so a specialist worker visits him at school to talk through any issues or questions he may have. Simon's wife Nicola says the support the hospice gives to their family is invaluable.

This Christmas will be the first for Clare Collins without her husband Tony. He was 38 and from Sutton Coldfield, he passed away earlier this year from stomach cancer.

Being able to care for him at home with the help of hospice workers, was a great comfort to Clare and their ten year old daughter Faye.

She doesnt think she could have coped without them, and both Clare and Faye continue to receive bereavement counselling from the hospice.

Only a third of the running costs for hospices is provided by the state. The rest has to be raised by public donation.

It costs one and a half million pounds a day to provide hospice care throughout the UK, which is why Text Santa has chosen Help the Hospices as one of this years beneficiaries.