10/08/2026
Hi, I’m Lydia, CEO of Franklin Hospice.
As many of you know, we’re currently raising $3 million to build a purpose-built hospice for the Franklin community.
Over the next few weeks, I thought I’d answer some of the questions we’re asked most often about hospice care, our services and our new hospice. Hopefully, it will help explain a little more about what we do, why we do it, and what our new home will mean for our community.
Today’s question is:
**Why doesn’t Franklin Hospice have an inpatient unit?**
There are a few reasons.
One of the most important things about hospice care is supporting people to be cared for in the place that is right for them. For most people, that means remaining at home for as long as possible — somewhere familiar, surrounded by the people, pets and things they love.
That has always been at the heart of the Franklin Hospice model.
Our specialist team provides palliative care and support in people’s homes seven days a week, with an overnight on-call service available 365 days a year. We also support the people around the patient, recognising that serious illness affects the whole whānau.
The number of our patients who need admission to an inpatient hospice unit is actually very small — currently around six people each year.
An inpatient hospice unit requires a very different level of resourcing, with specialist staff available around the clock regardless of how many beds are occupied. With a relatively small number of our patients requiring this level of care, our focus has been on using the funding available to provide high-quality hospice care and support to as many people as possible across Franklin.
When someone does need care that can’t be provided at home, we work alongside them, their whānau and other health services to help find the most appropriate option for their individual needs. Our team remains part of their support wherever their care takes place.
**So, what will our new hospice change?**
Our new hospice will give us something we’ve never had before: three dedicated patient rooms, alongside a whānau room and a range of purpose-built spaces for care and support.
These rooms won’t initially operate as a traditional 24-hour inpatient unit. Instead, they will give patients the opportunity to spend time at the hospice for planned care, assessment and support, while continuing to live at home whenever that remains right for them.
The new hospice will also bring more of our services together in one welcoming environment, with spaces for therapies, counselling, family support and other services designed around the needs of patients and whānau.
And importantly, we’re building with the future in mind. Franklin is growing, and our hospice needs to be able to grow with it. While our immediate focus remains on providing excellent community-based and day services, the new building gives us much greater flexibility to respond to the changing needs of our community over time.
We don’t know exactly what hospice care in Franklin will look like in another 10 or 20 years — but we want to make sure we have a facility that gives us the ability to evolve with it. Ultimately, our new hospice is about giving people more support, more choice and more opportunities to receive care closer to home.
If you have a question about Franklin Hospice, hospice care or our new building, leave it in the comments below. I’d love to answer some of them over the coming weeks.
And if you’d like to help us build the new Franklin Hospice, you can support the project here: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/building-franklins-future-hospice
