Alt text lookup failed for: https://staging.khh.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Roger-Patient-Driver-455x285.jpgAlt text lookup failed for: https://staging.khh.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Roger-Patient-Driver-portrait-450x450.jpg

Volunteer stories

Two minutes with … Roger

Roger’s associations with Katharine House go right back to the beginning when he trained as a nurse here. He then went on to work in the finance team and more recently as a valued volunteer. Read what volunteering at the hospice means to him.

What is your volunteering role at Katharine House and what does it involve?

I’m a volunteer driver, so my role is primarily ferrying in people to Living Well, but I’m also available for any driving requirements on the Inpatient Unit. The simple act of enabling someone to attend a session at Living Well means so much to patients.

When did you first start volunteering?

I started volunteering some time in 2023, I think – time flies when you’re enjoying yourself! I do one day a week with the possibility of helping more if it’s important.

What made you decide to volunteer for the hospice?

I share the same belief of the founding chairman of trustees, Neil Gadsby, that the hospice creates benefits for the local community. I’m able to volunteer my time to help create the caring atmosphere that is so beneficial to patients and people who are important to them. This gives me a huge sense of doing something that is worthwhile, and I am grateful to the hospice for the opportunity.

In my time working for the hospice (from 1992 to 2001 as a palliative care nurse and from 2001 to 2011 in the accounts department) I saw how vital the role of volunteers was in creating a caring and welcoming environment.

What’s the best thing about volunteering?

In my driving role I get to interact with people who are accessing the hospice services. Every patient is different, every journey is unique. I like to think I can help them feel at ease at a time when not everything is working well for them. I meet some really wonderful and interesting people.

We all are part of the family of the hospice and we each have our part to play. It makes me happy to be part of such an important facility for the north Oxfordshire community where I live. It’s a privilege to volunteer. It’s enriched my life and it’s great fun.

Why is volunteering important?

It is a way of supplying a vital role at a low cost to the charity while giving people the opportunity to enrich their own lives by volunteering. It’s a win for the volunteer, a win for the hospice and a win for patients, their family and all who are important to them on their journey. It’s that important!

What makes Katharine House so special?

Katharine House has a special history, borne out of the heartbreaking experiences of people who had to care for loved ones who had exhausted curative therapies and had to face life without readily available specialised palliative care.

Dame Cecily Saunders (who I was fortunate to meet and talk with) kick-started the modern hospice movement in the 1960s with the aim of convincing the NHS of the need of creating a medical specialism in palliative care. Leading by example, she proved that such skills could be developed within independent charity-funded hospices. She explained that her longer-term aim was to persuade the NHS to create its own specialism of palliative care and this has now happened.

Katharine House is so special to me because I worked there in the pioneer days when we could almost make it up as we went along. As a result of those heady days, the NHS is now stepping up to the mark and developing specialist palliative care nationwide.

Dame Cicely’s vision and the vision of people like Katharine’s parents, Neil and Heather Gadsby, have now been absorbed and accepted as vital by the organisation that bears the responsibility for delivering the nation’s health of body, mind and spirit – the NHS.

Now for some quick-fire questions…

If I could go anywhere in the world, I’d go to: Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival – in fact, I’m going again this year.

My favourite dessert is: the smashed-up Crunchie Bar pudding served at the Thai Orchid in Banbury.

My all-time greatest song is: Big Eyed Beans from Venus by Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band. I saw the band live at Birmingham Town Hall back in 1972 – happy days!

My favourite season is: spring – so much to look forward to.

My favourite thing to eat is: beans on sourdough toast with a grated cheese topping.

My proudest moment was: standing in for the father in the delivery suite during my nurse training (he couldn’t get back from Wales in time). Mum and I did the breathing exercises together during the delivery.

When I’m not at work, you will probably find me: in my garden.

My all-time favourite film is: A Matter of Life and Death (1946).

I’m currently listening to: euphoric trance music from the turn of the century.

If I had one superpower, it would be: to wake up in the morning full of energy and raring to go (those days are long gone!).

Katharine House Hospice

Visit our volunteer opportunities page to explore that wide-ranging volunteer roles available to support Katharine House Hospice.
To find out more about the work we do, read What we do.
Read about the End-of-life care and Palliative Care (EPiC) Resource Centre, designed to support you and your family and friends, wherever you are in your journey with Katharine House Hospice.
To receive regular news about development at the hospice and ways to support us, please sign up to our digital newsletter.