About the Charities

HIGHLAND HOSPICE is the only Hospice serving adults with incurable life-limiting disease in the Highlands of Scotland and is acknowledged as the centre of specialist palliative care expertise in the region. The Hospice currently provides a 10 bed In-Patient Unit in Inverness and a Day Hospice on the same site.

Other onsite healthcare and related services for patients include physiotherapy, occupational therapy, emotional and psycho-spiritual therapies and complementary therapies. Medical staff also provides a service within Raigmore Hospital and community hospitals as well as visiting patients at home. The Hospice also provides bereavement counselling for relatives, a 24 hour telephone helpline and education and training for other healthcare professionals to enhance their ability to provide palliative care in their own communities. While the majority of the referred patients have cancer, the Hospice is increasingly called upon to care for people with other incurable life-limiting disease including lung, kidney or heart disease and neurological conditions such as motor neurone disease.

The area covered by the Hospice stretches from Dalwhinnie in the south, east to Forres, west to Ardnamurchan, Lochalsh and Skye and north to John O'Groats and Cape Wrath. This area is 10,000 square miles or 1/6th of the UK landmass. Highland Hospice relies on the generosity of the Highland community to raise more than £40,000 that is required every week to keep the services going and to ensure that an exceptional quality of care continues to be provided.

THE PRINCESS ROYAL TRUST FOR CARERS is the largest provider of comprehensive carers support services in the UK. Every day more and more people face the demands of caring for a family member or friend. Caring can cause isolation, financial, emotional and health problems. We aim to ensure that carers are recognised and valued and are in touch with the appropriate support services.

We provide support to carers through our unique network of 129 independently managed Carers Centres and interactive websites. We currently support 290,000 carers plus just over 15,000 young carers between the ages of 5 and 18. However there are an estimated 6 million carers still out there, caring unsupported for a friend or family member, quite often for 24 hours a day, seven days a week without help, advice or support.

CHILDREN 1^ST is one of Scotland's leading child welfare charities. For over 120 years, we have been working to give every child in Scotland a safe and secure childhood. We want to create a society where all children are safe, loved, valued, and able to fulfil their potential. CHILDREN 1^ST believes that child welfare and protections is everyone's responsibility.

CHILDREN 1^ST supports families under stress, protects children from harm and neglect, helps them recover from abuse and promotes children's rights and interests through our 41 local and 6 national services run throughout Scotland.

From helplines (ParentLine Scotland is an essential lifeline providing immediate help, free advice and information to anyone concerned about a child), to family support (helping to relieve the pressures that families in difficult situations can face), young witness programmes (supporting children who have to give evidence in court), to therapeutic work (where victims of abuse are helped to recover from their ordeal and given hope for their future) – these are all services which change lives and provide children and their families with a brighter future.

CHILDREN 1^ST comes into contact with the most incredible children, most of whom have suffered traumas that, as adults, we couldn't possibly imagine. Despite the worst possible experiences CHILDREN 1^ST helps children to regain trust in adults and effect a positive and permanent change in their lives.

CHILDREN'S HOSPICE ASSOCIATION SCOTLAND (CHAS) is a Scottish charity established to provide hospice services in Scotland for children with life limiting conditions.

A children's hospice offers professional care, practical help and emotional support to the whole family from the day they are referred until the death of their child and beyond.

Rachel House, Scotland's first children's hospice, opened in Kinross in July 1996. Robin House in Balloch opened in August 2005. Both hospices are purpose-built and each provides ongoing support for up to 200 families across Scotland each year. Since 2003, our Rachel House at Home team, based in Inverness has provided support to children and their families in the Highlands.

At any one time, Rachel House and Robin House can each accommodate eight children and their families. No charge is made to families who use CHAS' services and both hospices and our At Home service are funded mainly through the huge generosity of our many supporters who help us in so many ways.

THE PRINCE & PRINCESS OF WALES HOSPICE in Glasgow provides specialist palliative care to patients with a life-limiting illness and support for those who care for them. All care provided is free. The Hospice relies heavily on charitable income and needs to raise £2 million from voluntary donations each year.