Background Compassionate Communities approaches are well documented world-wide including India, Australia and Europe. Our St Catherine’s Hospice Compassionate Communities project in Northwest England began in August 2022 with an ‘open brief’ to investigate assets within our communities of Central Lancashire, to listen, identify gaps, and work with each community to trial solutions.

Method In the town of Chorley, we co-produced listening events with council and NHS partners to establish what residents valued and felt was missing around bereavement support. This coincided with a request for support from a town centre church. We provided staff, training and hospice volunteers to help establish a bereavement café in partnership with the church. We then identified an accessible location in a second area (Leyland) to set up another bereavement café and provided similar resource.

Results Both groups were trialled monthly for six months. Average attendance at Chorley was six people per session and at Leyland was five people per session. Qualitative feedback was positive for both cafes, and the majority of people were repeat attenders.

After six months, both bereavement cafes were handed over to volunteers and continue to run without the input of paid staff. However, the second café that was proactively established by us does not have volunteer input from the hosting organisation and requires a funding source for room hire.

Conclusions We reflected that responding to an identified need from a well-established community organisation led relatively quickly to a ‘self-sustaining’ intervention. A similar intervention has been well received but continues to require external funding and commitment from external agencies. Learning from this, we have been approached by a place of worship and a community growing group in Preston and are confident initial support and training from hospice staff will enable them to set up and sustain bereavement groups.