The Alan Hudson Centre welcomes positive visit from Healthwatch

• 23 July 2025

In June 2025, The Alan Hudson Centre in Wisbech received an ‘Enter and View’ visit from Healthwatch Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

The Centre, an Arthur Rank Hospice Charity Service based at North Cambridgeshire Hospital, delivers a wide range of specialist palliative care services to people living with life-limiting conditions across Wisbech and the Fens. With rural isolation and transport challenges making it difficult for many to access Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge or Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn, the Centre provides quicker and more accessible care close to home. The team supported 1,219 patients between April 2023 and March 2024 across its full range of services and continues to support a similar number of patients each year.

The visit offered Healthwatch representatives an opportunity to observe services first-hand, speak with patients, staff and volunteers and gather feedback on what is working well and where there may be room for improvement.

The Charity were delighted to receive positive feedback from patients and carers:

• Those who spoke to Healthwatch described the Centre as a ‘warm, friendly, and a person-centred environment.’ One individual shared that ‘It’s first-class treatment. The staff are wonderful. It’s a relaxed atmosphere and the staff have time for you.’
• Another patient who has been attending the Centre for ten years said they ‘appreciated the free complementary therapies and the relaxed, supportive environment.’
• A carer told Healthwatch they ‘always felt welcomed and reassured and praised the team for being responsive and compassionate in a way that made a tangible difference to people’s experiences.’

The Charity are always open to feedback and suggestions to continuously improve the patient experience and have already acted on the small number of recommendations, focused on improving access and inclusion, that Healthwatch shared including:

• Enhancing signage and accessibility for visitors.
• Increasing visibility of translation services and multilingual materials.
• Making leaflets and posters easier to understand and regularly checked for relevance.

New and ongoing measures include:

• Increasing signage to highlight interpreter services.
• Introducing a simple translation tool using frequently spoken local languages.
• Incorporating recommendations into the Widening Access Group action plan.
• Continuing to attend Integrated Neighbourhood meetings and stakeholder events.

The Healthwatch team highlighted the importance of several services:

• Living Well programme and gentle exercise classes like ‘Love to Move’.
• Complementary therapies, psychological and bereavement support.
• Hospice at Home service, offering up to 60 hours of care per day in the community.
• Outreach and community palliative care, including support for the Trafford Ward at the adjoining North Cambridgeshire Hospital.

Colleagues were praised for dedication and experience and they were highly commended by Healthwatch for their commitment and long-standing service, with some team members having worked at the Centre for more than ten years. Colleagues reported that having permanent employment contracts helped strengthen governance and continuity of care. One member of the team shared: “We aim to be very flexible and react to individual needs as they arise.”

Staff also benefit from a range of wellbeing support measures, including 1:1 supervision, holistic therapies, and access to trained mental health first aiders.

The visiting team summarised:

• All people coming into the Centre were treated like family. Visitors told Healthwatch that ‘the staff were lovely, make them feel comfortable, know them, make them feel like individuals and human.’
• Staff have a permanent contract of employment which can make governance better.
• Local people can use the “Tiger bus”, however this bus is not accessible for people using wheelchairs or walking frames.
• The team of staff have long term continual service – with some having 10 to 18 years of experience.

Michelle Knight, Matron in Palliative Medicine and Registered Manager at the Alan Hudson Centre, commented:

“We really appreciate the time and effort Healthwatch have taken to carry out their Enter and View and we are thankful for their helpful feedback. We’ve already acted on some of their suggestions and are pleased to be able to share our progress with both the Clinical Governance Committee and the wider community”

You can read the full report here.