Speaker Amanda Warrant - Marie Curie

In 1944, most of the hospital was destroyed by a direct hit in an air raid. In 1948, five members of the re-establishment committee set up to oversee rebuilding of the hospital decided to separate themselves from the new NHS. Instead, they sought to perpetuate the name of Marie Curie in the charitable medical field. This was the beginning of the charity that is now known as Marie Curie.

The early facilities were nursing homes and one of these was Adenlea in Ilkley. From the early 1980s, Marie Curie moved away from providing long-term nursing care to cancer patients and became increasingly focused on hospice care. In the 1980's Ardenlea was closed and the new hospice at Maudsley Street in Bradford was opened.

In 2018 the hospice was redeveloped in a £1.5 million upgrade that added extra beds and also provided a new Gym, Aroma Therapy room and a modern accessible Outpatients. Morrisons Foundation donated almost £0.5 million of this money with Sovereign Healthcare being another large donor.

Today the hospice deals with over 1700 outpatients who enjoy special classes for Parkinsons sufferers, a scheme especially for children called the Swan Project as well as specialist services for inpatients such as hairdressing, bringing in pets and special meals cooked to whatever the patient desires.

Currently 40% of the funding comes from the NHS but as these funds are under severe strain the hospice is working hard to get more funds from other sources. Amanda recently took part in a trek in Nepal that raised £220,000 from the 60 participants. 20 of these people were from Bradford who raised over £100,000 for the Bradford facility.