About us

The Hospice of St Francis is a charity which helps 2,000 local people and their families, in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, to live their precious lives well.

Improving symptoms, achieving personal goals and helping them to feel safe.

Defined by each person’s need, our free care for people managing, or recovering from, serious illness has many forms – care at the Hospice, at Home, or in our Health and Wellbeing Centre which offers courses, workshops, clinics and therapies.

Image of the front of The Hospice of St Francis and the statue

Based in beautiful surroundings just outside Berkhamsted, we’re also here for family, friends and carers.

We offer advice for those worried about a loved one which could mean recommending group activities, supporting children through a close relative’s illness or providing practical support and advice when someone special is no longer here.

We love what we do and we love your support too. Volunteering, sharing stories from your precious life, shopping with us , taking part in, or organising, a fundraising event or simply donating to us.

From coins in a home box to leaving a gift in your Will - all helps us raise over £6 million annually to fund our free care. Every penny is needed to do what we do. Thank you.

Learn about our history

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Find out who's who

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Read our accounts

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Learn about our values

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A hospice is a gift a community gives to itself. We couldn't do this without your support!

2000

patients and their families supported every year

24%

increase in our referrals since 20/21

£6000000

needed annually to fund our care

80%

of our funding relies on the kindness of our local community.

Graded outstanding in our last Care Quality Commission inspection (June 2016), our charity supports a person or family unit for however long we’re needed.

In February 2023 we successfully completed our routine Direct Monitoring Approach [DMA] meeting with The Care Quality Commission [CQC]. The DMA meeting is a structured conversation between CQC and the Hospice with a focus on safety and leadership. CQC monitor our activity through a combination of data analysis, review of regulatory activity, questioning, case study and direct feedback from people who use our services, families, staff and volunteers.

CQC continue to conduct monthly reviews of our regulatory activity. Satisfactory outcomes of this additional monitoring is published on the CQC website providing reassurance to providers and the public that there continues to be no evidence to indicate a need to re-assess the rating of our service at this time.