Blooming Great Tea Party

This summer Marie Curie Cancer Care is calling on all gardening enthusiasts to hold a Blooming Great Tea Party to help raise funds for the charity.  You could hold a picnic on your lawn, a high tea in your conservatory or, if you’re a NGS garden owner, why not turn your visitor refreshments into a Blooming Great Tea Party?

Holding a Tea Party is a great way to get together with friends and enjoy your garden when it is at its best. The money you raise will allow more Marie Curie Nurses to provide free care to terminally ill patients in their own homes or at one of the charity’s hospices.

Bloooming Great Tea Parties will be taking place across the UK throughout the summer with Marie Curie Cancer Care hoping  to raise one million pounds from the campaign.

If you would like to hold your own Blooming Great Tea Party, please call 08700 340 040 or visit www.mariecurie.org.uk/teaparty for your free fundraising pack bursting with fabulous ideas to help create the perfect party.

To get help from the Marie Curie Nursing Service, talk to your GP, district nurse or discharge nurse. For more information, please visit: www.mariecurie.org.uk.

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For further information contact Liz Ensor on 0207 599 7265 or liz.ensor@mariecurie.org.uk.

Notes to Editor:

• Marie Curie Cancer Care is one of the UK’s largest charities. Employing more than 2,700 nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals, it expects to provide care to around 29,000 terminally ill patients in the community and in its hospices this year and is the largest provider of hospice beds outside the NHS.

• Funding. Around 70 per cent of the charity’s income comes from the generous support of thousands of individuals, membership organisations and businesses, with the balance of our funds coming from the NHS.

• Marie Curie Nurses. The charity is best known for its network of Marie Curie Nurses working in the community to provide end-of-life care, totally free for patients in their own homes.

• Research. The charity has two centres for palliative care research, The Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Unit at University College London and The Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute in Liverpool.

• It also funds seven fundamental scientific research groups which investigate the causes and treatments of cancer. This research was previously carried out at the Marie Curie Research Institute in Oxted, Surrey. The programmes are now located in universities around the country, and will receive funding from the charity until 2012.

• Supporting the choice to die at home. Research shows around 65 per cent of people would like to die at home if they had a terminal illness, with a sizeable minority opting for hospice care. However, more than 50 per cent of cancer deaths still occur in hospital, the place people say they would least like to be. Since 2004 Marie Curie Cancer Care has been campaigning for more patients to be able to make the choice to be cared for and die at home.