The Sara Lee Trust

The Sara Lee Trust emerged from a very personal tragedy.  Sara Lee died in the 1980s from a rare form of cancer, aged 32.  Having used complementary therapies on her own journey, she imagined creating Trust to offer the same to other sufferers of cancer, motor neurone disease and HIV and AIDS.  In 1986, her parents did just that.

Her father, who is medical director of the local hospice says 'as a medical specialist I have been increasingly aware that healing depends not only on directly treating physical symptoms with medicines, but also recognising and caring for the emotional, social and spiritual needs of the individual.'

 The Trust was founded in a time when the local hospice didn’t even have a counsellor.  The charity has lived through considerable change and complementary therapies are now often associated with palliative treatment for cancer.  Even so, workers still find themselves pushing for sense over ‘health and safety’.  They recently had to fight to allow a woman to light a candle in her room through the process of death – and would like to make it possible for a patient to bring their futon into the hospice.

They also offer support for affected people outside the hospice. Once a month, there are 'spa days', where patients take over an historic house, buried in the Sussex countryside.  This is a chance for users to be open about the emotions that they feel they have to keep from their families.  All talk pragmatically about cancer without the weight of fear and pity that often comes from the physically healthy.  It's an opportunity for people to take stock, whether they are facing death or turning back to life after successful treatment.  Psychotherapists are on hand when users want to talk, but take a back seat when patients simply want to chat to each other.  As one user says 'no-one who hasn't been through this experience can tell you what it's like.'

They also receive their own choice of massage, aromatherapy or other treatments from trained staff.   

Patients have to be referred by a healthcare professional – so access is often dependent on the attitude of GPs and hospital staff.  But once linked up with the service all treatments are free of charge and continue throughout the illness. 

Staff say that just as there are midwives for birth, so they are midwives for what often turns out to be an exit from life.  Helping people work out how to talk to their families - sometimes including young children - and reach a level of calm is vitally important work, not just for the patients but also for their families.