A Hoover isn’t a Hoover when it is a Dyson. A familiar name can be a confusing thing sometimes.

For example, not all nurses who visit you at home when you have cancer are MacMillan nurses. In fact in north, south and west Dorset none of them are.

‘Macmillan’ has become the shorthand way of saying ‘the nurse who visits you at home when you have cancer and helps with your symptom control and family support and psychological issues and maybe benefits, too’. In this part of Dorset, nurses from Weldmar Hospicecare provide this service.

We also provide the day-hospice care and inpatient hospice which so many people value.

Why does this matter?

Well, of course, fundraising is really important.

From time to time we notice people valiantly fundraising for MacMillan because they believe they have received support from MacMillan nurses, when, in fact, they were Weldmar nurses.

Perhaps, more importantly, we think it proper that patients and their families know where the service they are getting comes from because they may well have comments on quality which we need to hear.

We should also mention Marie Curie nurses, who are our valued working partners. They provide an at-home hands-on nursing service in Dorset which complements our specialist nurses and we could not do without them.

They are run and mostly paid for by Marie Curie Cancer Care and like us they are partly funded by the NHS.

I hope this clarifies things.

Alison Ryan Chief Executive Weldmar Hospicecare Trust