St Elizabeth Hospice is an independent Suffolk charity, which every year delivers care to over 4,000 patients and their families who are living with a progressive or life-limiting illness.
Our care is given across East, Mid-Suffolk & into Great Yarmouth and Waveney.
The majority our care is given in people’s homes or community settings and is entirely free.
St Elizabeth Hospice services cost around £12million to facilitate each year, with the charity raising 70% of funds via revenue streams and the generosity of the community through support of its retail shops and fundraising activities.
Since 2015, we launched Zest – our young adult service which supports those aged 14 and above with progressive & incurable illnesses. We work closely with children’s hospice services to ensure young adults have a smooth transition into adult care, tailored treatment and services they need to be able to enjoy life to the full.
We’ve been providing services in Great Yarmouth and Waveney since 2019, in partnership with East Coast Community Healthcare. In 2023, our services in Great Yarmouth and Waveney merged with the organisation East Coast Hospice. We have specialist palliative care beds at Beccles Hospital as well as support in the community in people’s homes.
At St Elizabeth Hospice, we have four core values:
In 1983, a public fundraising appeal was launched with the aim of raising £1million to establish a hospice in East Suffolk.
Members of the appeal committee visited other hospices to inspire ideas for the building and understand the services needed for the local community.
In 1987, the committee’s determination, along with the amazing support and generosity of local people, paid off and fundraising target was met.
After a competition in a local paper, we chose the name St Elizabeth Hospice – named after St Elizabeth of Thuringia, known for her kindness to the less fortunate and devotion to the poor and sick.
Building work began in May 1988, with the Duchess of Norfolk laying the foundation stone two months later.
We began treating individuals on the 1 November 1989 and HRH the Princess Royal officially opened the building on the 5 December that year.
Opening with 10 beds in June 1990, we expanded to offer a Day Care service, accommodating 8 patients a day. In 1997, former Ipswich Town Football Club & England Manager, Sir Bobby Robson, opened the new purpose built Day Centre which allowed for more patient care.
The Day Care service saw expansions and renovations to the building in 2007, 2008 and 2015. This part of the hospice building has since transformed into the Community Care Unit in 2021 and is used a facility for Zest Short Breaks to support young adults living with incurable illnesses.
Community Care Units now operate in Ipswich, Beccles, Gorleston, Martham and Halesworth.
Refurbishments of the Inpatient Unit took place in 2000 & 2011, which now offers 18 beds.
In 2019, we expanded services to reach patients in Great Yarmouth and Waveney, working with East Coast Community Healthcare to provide specialist palliative care services at Beccles Hospital & in people’s homes.
70% of our hospice costs have to be raised by us, 30% comes from services commissioned by the NHS.
This means that we rely on the generosity of our local community to help fund services for today, tomorrow and into the future.
At St Elizabeth Hospice, we are proud to provide palliative and end-of-life care to people in our local community.
We recognise that access to high-quality, equitable care is not always easy, and that many people face significant challenges at a time when care matters most.
Research is central to how we respond to these challenges. It helps us understand the needs of our patients and their communities, improve the care we provide, and advocate for better outcomes.
We are committed to delivering high-quality research that makes a meaningful difference, and we actively welcome collaboration with clinicians, academics, community groups, service users and other partners.
Together, we aim to improve experiences and outcomes for people affected by life-limiting illness and strengthen the role of hospices as research-active organisations within their communities.
Meet our research team at St Elizabeth Hospice via their profiles below. If you want to be involved in research or have any questions, get in touch with the team via the button below:
Consultant in Palliative Medicine | Research Lead
Research background & expertise
Dr Joseph Sawyer is a palliative care consultant and researcher with a strong commitment to advancing public health palliative care, Compassionate Communities, and social approaches to death, dying, and loss.
He completed his undergraduate medical training at Imperial College London, followed by an Academic Clinical Fellowship in Palliative Medicine at University College London. In 2020, he was awarded an Alzheimer’s Society Clinical Training Fellowship to explore the role of compassionate communities for people affected by dementia, research that culminated in the award of his PhD in 2024.
Joe is currently the Research Lead at St Elizabeth Hospice and holds visiting researcher positions at the University of Cambridge and the University of Suffolk. His ongoing work focuses on integrative models of care that prioritise values at the end of life, with particular interest in frailty, complexity, and uncertainty – and how we might meaningfully define success in these contexts.
Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Great Yarmouth and Waveney
Research background & expertise
Dr Abigail Hensley is a consultant in palliative medicine with a strong interest in health inequalities and improving access to palliative and end-of-life care across diverse communities.
She completed her undergraduate medical training and a Master’s in Research in Clinical Sciences at the University of East Anglia, before undertaking an Academic Foundation Programme at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. In 2023, she was awarded an Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) East of England Fellowship, in partnership with NICHE (the Norfolk Initiative for Coastal and Rural Health Equalities), to lead a research project focused on inequalities in access to and provision of palliative and end-of-life care in coastal communities.
Abi is passionate about making research more accessible, relevant, and applicable to all, regardless of geography or social background. Her current work focuses on building research capacity to support inclusive, high-quality research for people living in rural, coastal, and low-income communities.
Consultant in Palliative Medicine
Research background & expertise
Dr John Zeppetella is an internationally recognised palliative care physician whose research has made major contributions to the understanding and management of cancer-related pain, particularly breakthrough pain.
Over more than three decades, he has published extensively across clinical studies, systematic reviews, and pharmacological research, with a particular focus on opioid pharmacology and innovative analgesic delivery methods. He has played a leading role in international collaborations with the European Palliative Care Research Collaborative (EPCRC) and the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC), contributing to widely cited evidence-based opioid prescribing guidelines.
Dr Zeppetella has also contributed to the development of key clinical assessment tools, including the Breakthrough Pain Assessment Tool (BAT), and has authored numerous book chapters and textbooks, including award-winning works in palliative care. His research continues to shape clinical practice and standards in palliative medicine.
Joe’s future aims include building research capacity at St Elizabeth Hospice and supporting its development as a research-active centre. He is keen to collaborate with individuals and organisations across a wide range of disciplines and sectors.
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