Sharing Hospice Care Across Borders
When Olga Papadoiliopoulou stepped into ellenor’s recently redeveloped hospice in Northfleet, she was seeing more than a building. She was seeing what hospice care can become.
Olga is Chief Executive of Nosilia, an Athens-based charity providing palliative care for adults in Greece. She recently visited Kent as the guest of ellenor’s founder, Graham Perolls, to explore how hospice services might develop in her own country.
For Graham, the visit was not about looking back, but about sharing learning.
“Seeing a fully functioning day centre and outpatient clinic was extremely useful for her,” he said. “It makes such a difference to see how things work with your own eyes.”
Today, ellenor supports children and adults with life-limiting illness across North Kent and Bexley — in people’s homes, in the community, and from its Northfleet site. Developed over more than four decades, that experience now offers practical insight to emerging hospice services beyond the UK.
Palliative care in Greece is still developing. In Athens, a city of more than 600,000 people, there are only two hospice charities – one for adults and one for children. Nosilia, which Olga leads, operates from a small office with a multidisciplinary team of doctors, nurses, a physiotherapist, a social worker and administrative staff. They care for around 100 patients at any one time, relying heavily on volunteers and charitable fundraising.
Although Greece’s Ministry of Health has formally recognised palliative care, national guidelines and funding structures are still evolving.
Through Graham’s charity, Hospices of Hope, and with support from partners including ellenor, the aim is to help emerging hospice movements build capacity through advocacy, technical expertise, training and funding guidance.
“Our role is four-fold,” Graham explained. “We work on advocacy, helping governments and decision-makers understand the importance of palliative care. We share technical expertise around developing services. We support training and ellenor have generously offered to help with that and we assist with fundraising. Without funding, progress is very difficult.”
ellenor’s clinical expertise, developed in Kent, will contribute to that training offer, with opportunities for knowledge exchange and professional development.
For Graham, hospice care is deeply personal.
He was in his twenties when both his parents died within four years of one another – his father in a hospice, his mother in hospital.
“My dad was very well cared for and his pain was controlled,” he said. “When he died, the nurses knelt by his bed and one of them read the 23rd Psalm. It was very peaceful.”
His mother’s death was very different.
“They didn’t realise she was dying. They sent me away. I felt instinctively I should go back to her.”
The contrast shaped his life’s work. Determined that more families should experience the compassion and dignity he witnessed in hospice care, he founded ellenor in Kent, naming it after his parents, Ellen and Norman.
With support from local donors and community groups, including the Lions, the charity grew steadily, becoming an established part of the fabric of North Kent and Bexley.
In 2004, Graham stepped back from leading ellenor to establish Hospices of Hope, extending similar support to countries including Romania, Serbia, Moldova, Albania and Ukraine. One of the first nurses in Romania was an ellenor nurse, Sylvia Jarrett, who spent two years helping establish services there.
Today, as ellenor continues to expand its services locally, it also remains connected to a wider hospice movement.
For Graham, bringing Olga to Northfleet felt significant.
“It’s wonderful to see how ellenor has flourished and developed,” he said. “It is deeply rooted in its local community and helping more people every year. Being able to share that experience is incredibly valuable.”
For ellenor, the visit reflects something enduring: the belief that good hospice care should not be defined by geography. What began in Kent as one family’s response to loss has grown into a charity serving thousands locally and now contributing to conversations about hospice care across Europe.
From Northfleet to Athens, the principle remains the same: that everyone facing serious illness deserves dignity, comfort and compassion – not only at the end of life but throughout their care. Hospice care is about helping people live as fully as possible, for as long as possible, supported by highly trained, specialist teams.
