50 years of Care – Toby Porter’s story

This year, Dorothy House proudly celebrates its 50th birthday — a milestone marking half a century of compassionate care, innovation, and community partnership.

We were delighted to receive a letter of congratulations and thanks from Toby Porter, CEO of Hospice UK. Toby has campaigned tirelessly for long-term hospice funding, and we are grateful for Hospice UK’s efforts to help secure the future of hospices in the UK.

Toby Porter’s letter to Dorothy House

It gives me huge pleasure as CEO of Hospice UK to say congratulations and thank you to everyone at Dorothy House for reaching this wonderful milestone of 50 years of providing high quality care. I can’t begin to imagine how proud Prue Dufour, Dr Bridget Wakefield and their co-founders and pioneers would be if they could see what a fantastic hospice charity and force for good in the world that you are today.

You have touched the lives of so many patients and families over that period, including my own.

Sadly, in 1984 when he was just 47 years old, my father Michael Porter developed mesothelioma. He must have come into contact with asbestos early in his career with the Royal Navy. This is an aggressive and very painful cancer affecting the lining of the lung, with very poor outcomes even now. Back in 1984, it was deemed completely untreatable at the time of his diagnosis a few days before Christmas, and he was never offered or sought any curative or disease slowing treatment.

When the pain became too much in April 1985, he was admitted first into the Bath Clinic. They were unable to fully control his pain, but they were able to confirm he was nearing the end of his life. It was his deep wish to die at home, a village c 10 miles away, but this seemed very unlikely in view of the severity of his  suffering.

The doctors at the hospital eventually suggested that he be admitted to Dorothy House, in your original building at 162 Bloomfield Road in the city.

I don’t remember the term being mentioned at the time in our family conversations, but my father was transferred to Dorothy House for what we would call today a successful symptom management stay. Your expert doctors and nurses were able to succeed where the hospital doctors had not, and finally managed to get his pain under control.

After a short stay at Dorothy House, he was well enough to leave, and died peacefully in the home he loved a few days later, on the 4^th May 1985, my sixteenth birthday. My mother was 42 at the time, and my brother seventeen.

Those days are and actually always were a blur, but all three of us have always remembered Dorothy House as a place of calm and kindness, who helped my father so much over the time he was with you.

After he died, like so many families throughout your 50 years, we wanted to do our bit and raise funds for Dorothy House, so that others could benefit from your care the way that our father and our family had done.

My brother James was the one who did by far the lion’s share on our family’s behalf, running the Edinburgh Marathon on 1^st September that year for Dorothy House. Here he is crossing the finishing line, in a very impressive time as I think he did two or three training runs all summer!

James raised £425 in sponsorship, and we received this lovely letter back, which he still has in his photo album.

It was a lovely letter, not just a thank you, but also you can see that the then Bursar was also keen to see how my mother was doing, and acknowledging that she was too upset to make a return visit to the hospice, and we didn’t go back either.

But finally in 2023, I did have a chance to go back. I had a new job with Hospice UK, and I was able to finally go back to Dorothy House, of course this time to your beautiful hospice in Winsley.

You can watch the video here – https://youtu.be/p5y7f5PIVmQ

My father died 41 years ago next week, and obviously my memories of him have faded along with my youth! But my visits to Dorothy House, and time spent with Wayne really motivate me and give me a sense of a connection with my father, so meaningful and so welcome after all these years.

I will be so glad to take my seat in Bath Abbey on Friday 1^st May, for the special Service of Thanksgiving to mark the 50^th Anniversary of Dorothy House.

I will continue to do all I can with my colleagues at Hospice UK to ensure your care service and your reputation will continue to grow over the next 50 years!

Thank you and congratulations to the whole team.

Toby Porter
CEO, Hospice UK, 28^th April 2026

Dorothy House features in The Bath Magazine

Dorothy House’s anniversary has also been featured in May’s issue of The Bath Magazine, with six pages covering our story, from the founding by Prue DuFour, to the many services we provide to our community, and finally, where our journey continues to take us.