Your Hertfordshire Body in Harmony

08/11/2025

Your osteopathic treatment will involve a combination of physical manipulation (not “cracking”), stretching & massage; and also cranial osteopathy. I also advise on the use of hot or cold, rest or exercise, postural changes, and can, if necessary, give an off-work certificate.

07/11/2025

A few weeks ago, we asked our community to stand with us once more as we faced a significant £750,000 funding gap this year – rising to £1.1 million next year. To date, we have received £134,075 in donations from those who heard our call. We are deeply grateful for your generosity and the belief you continue to show in us.

Sadly, despite this incredible support, it isn’t enough. Today, we face the most serious challenge in our Hospice’s history.

We receive 29% of our total funding from the NHS for core hospice and health services that they commission and fund on behalf of patients, leaving us to raise the other 71% through charitable donations. Sadly, this year there has been a decline in giving across the charity sector, and Garden House Hospice Care has been affected by this too.

We have raised our concerns locally and nationally and asked the NHS to help us to meet the shortfall in our funding. The NHS has confirmed that there will be no reduction in their funding this year, and they will maintain our current funding levels next year, with a potential uplift in line with national guidance – equating to around £45,000 against our £1.1 million shortfall. While we appreciate this minor increase, this still leaves Garden House Hospice Care with some difficult decisions to take now, to ensure that we will still be here to support our local community this year and in the years to come.

We now have no choice but to act, so implementing a plan we never wanted to use is our only way of sustaining Garden House for the future. We are confident that taking immediate action will enable us to protect hospice care for our current and future patients and their families.

It is with great sadness, we are entering a formal 30-day consultation on services, which we expect could result in over 20 redundancies. Our focus is on supporting patients, family members and colleagues through this uncertain time whilst we face our new reality.

Our full range of services will remain unchanged throughout this consultation period.

In the future, services may look different, structures may change but one thing is for certain – our commitment to quality and compassionate care in the final phase and days of life for our patients, their families and carers remains our biggest priority.

The silence from national decision-makers is deafening. Hospices across the UK have been warning of this crisis for years. Two-thirds faced a funding shortfall last year, and this year 40% of hospices are being forced to cut services. This is expected to rise. This is not just a funding crisis - it is a care crisis.

We vow to continue to put our patients first and to support them through any changes to their care. We are and will continue to do everything we can to minimise the impact on them and their loved ones.

🔗 For more information, visit www.ghhospicecare.org.uk/important-update

06/11/2025

🎄🎄LETCHWORTH WE NEED YOU. Please, please share, tag and let people know who this could really help. People of Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire & the surrounding areas we need your help. Let’s make a difference this Christmas!

Please share with anyone who might benefit. We have a massive 56, 000 sq ft building in Letchworth and want to open it up to our community.

Emil Dale Academy are hosting our annual “Spare Chair Christmas” project on Friday 5th December for the elderly in the local area who live alone and want to join our students and staff, in our studios, for a roast dinner and of course a song or two. We are a musical theatre school after all!?

The best news is everything on the day will be totally paid for by us.

It’s time to step up! If you know someone who is elderly and living alone knock on their door, tell them about our project and get them to our building.

Don’t leave it to someone else. We really can make a BIG difference if we work together.

Get talking to people. Maybe you have elderly neighbours or even people you are aware live alone?! It’s time to reach out.

Everyone at our Academy is super friendly and we want to welcome as many people as we can. We have 80 free places available so get sharing.

Lunch is at 1pm 😀.

We are located on Emil Dale Academy, Broadway, Letchworth SG63PA.

DID YOU KNOW?
-A third of people over the age of 80 in the UK eat alone every day.
- Research reveals that hosting a Sunday Roast dinner could help tackle loneliness in older people
“We know that regular friendship links over a meal provide a simple solution to the complex problem of isolation in older people. The benefits are enormous for both older people and hosts and volunteers at contact the Elderly only need do it once or twice a year to make an enormous difference to older people’s lives.”

All you need to do to get involved is email info@emildale.co.uk with CHRISTMAS DINNER 2025 in the subject we need attendee details:

NAME / PHONE NUMBER / ADDRESS / ACCESS REQUIREMENTS or call us 01462 677 808 if you or they don’t have access to email.

01/11/2025

11 Tips for Inner Calm.

Life can feel like a series of broken fragments – shifting shadows that never stay still. So, how can we find and keep a place of calm within us?

Try these tips and ideas: https://buff.ly/3Zw4noE

25/10/2025

So, the clocks go back tomorrow – do you love this, or do you dread this? Don’t know about you, but my car clock is always the last to get done . . .

And how do you cope with the winter months? I know that some of you get SAD (seasonal affective disorder) – light boxes can help, but nothing beats natural sunlight. As I am typing this, it’s a pale sunlit kind of morning, and I hope to go for a short walk later: time in nature, listening to the trees rustling in the wind, the childhood pleasure of the crackle of fallen leaves underfoot, savouring the smells of autumn's gentle wind-down into winter.

Also, taking Vitamin D is important during these darker months – good for your brain, good for your immune system, and good for your lungs. For current patients (if you have seen me in 2024) I am happy to order vitamin D capsules at trade price for you, which can be quite a saving.

Enjoy the sunlight whenever we have it! And if you can do some stretching in the sunlight, even better.

See you soon, and stay safe.

22/10/2025

21/10/2025

20/10/2025

Move from staying stuck to whole-hearted living.

Learning to accept and live with all our emotions is by no means what most of us do. Instead, most of us use default behaviors that we hope will deflect or disguise our "negative" feelings so we won't have to face them.

What default behavior do you use to sidestep your feelings? Next time you notice yourself following that same old path, try opening yourself up to your emotions so that you can grow. That is whole-hearted living.

19/10/2025

Standing ab exercises engage a network of muscles within your core that you use all the time. When you do an ab workout from a standing position, you’re working more of the muscles in that system.

Strengthening your core can help you:

🧍‍♂️Improve your balance
🧍‍♂️Maintain good posture
🧍‍♂️Protect your back from aches and pains
🧍‍♂️Better handle day-to-day movements that require bending, lifting and twisting

18/10/2025

Do you ever struggle with your balance?

Or feel a bit light-headed if you have to wait at a traffic junction with an acute angle, looking in one direction for a long time while you wait for the flow of cars to give you enough space to emerge?

Your neck is key.

As we get older, the joints in our neck can get stiffer and stiffer, and the muscles get tighter and tighter until they forget how to relax.

Alongside osteopathic treatment, exercise is key!

Learning new skills is good for your brain, from balance exercises to learning Tai Chi, or going to dance classes.

Research has shown that how well we balance can be a measure of how healthily we age – even more reason to make a start, however old you are now.