Sir Oliver Heald MP for North East Hertfordshire officially reopened the Ernest Gardiner Centre in Letchworth Garden City.

The centre was set up in 1985 as a community facility. Over the years it was very active; the local community donated money to buy equipment and keep services running.

The Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation operated the service. Over the years, the number of people using the service reduced, and it became clear that much of the work was being duplicated by Garden House Hospice Care. It was decided in 2019 that the Foundation would gift the building to the hospice – and the Covid-19 pandemic became was the catalyst to start this process.

The situation forced the Foundation to close down the existing service and, after a short stint as a vaccination centre, the centre was gifted to Garden House Hospice Care and was relaunched this week.

Steve Mellish is Chair of Garden House Hospice Care. He said: "As a care provider, we are looking constantly at how we can expand our reach and provide more services to those that need it.

"Focusing not only on end of life care, but much earlier in our patients from diagnosis. The Ernest Gardiner Centre provides us with the ability to facilitate a wide range of services that patients much earlier in their diagnosis can come and benefit from to help them psychologically, physically and mentally in terms of dealing with their situation and making the most of whatever time they have left. 

"The centre provides us and the community the ability to provide that within a nice, welcoming comfortable environment which is what our Community Hubs are for." 

You can find out more about The Ernest Gardiner Centre and the Community Hubs available at https://www.ghhospicecare.org.uk/supporting-you/community-hubs

See Letchworth Nub News for more on this story later this week