31 March 1999

Care for the terminally ill to be improved

A significant boost to hospice care in Scotland is announced today by the National Lottery Charities Board. Grants worth more than £2 million will provide new facilities for three hospices in the West of Scotland, and establish a hospice at home service for cancer patients in East Dunbartonshire.

And a grant to the Scottish Partnership Agency for Palliative and Cancer Care will enable the agency to provide support for organisations throughout the country which provide cancer care.

The hospice service in Scotland has been slow to benefit from National Lottery funding but a decision by the Charities Board to encourage applications from the sector has led to a significant number of applications coming forward.

Iain Laidlaw, the Chief Executive of the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice, has made two successful applications to the National Lottery Charities Board. "While hospices in Scotland will always depend on donations from the public to meet their running costs, grants from the Charities Board enable us to do extra things which we would not otherwise be able to do.

"Here in Glasgow we have been able to build a new day care centre for terminally ill people and with today's news of a further grant we will be able to extend the care we provide for people in their homes."

The 56 grants announced today are worth £7.4 million to voluntary and community organisations throughout Scotland. They include a grant of £200,000 to Glasgow's prestigious Lighthouse Trust for an outreach project which will involve the city's community groups in the Glasgow 1999 Year of Architecture programme.

The grants will also fund a community newspaper in Perthshire, a youth cafe in Nairn, and will put further investment into the Isle of Eigg by supporting islanders to improve facilities and create jobs.

For more information and arrangements to interview successful applicants phone Kay Caldwell, Communications Officer, on 0131 221 7100 or 0468 583 441.