St Cuthbert's Hospice, in Durham City, hopes to build an extension offering round-the-clock care to terminally ill patients. Tony Kearney meets one woman who believes 24-hour hospice care would have made a difference during her father's final days.

IT was New Year's Eve 2002, as the rest of the world was celebrating and looking forward to the future, that Brian Proudlock's family faced their darkest hour.

The fit and active 65-year-old underwent an operation at Newcastle General Hospital, which confirmed he was suffering from a brain tumour.

Daughter Julie Spoors remembered: "It was a bombshell. It was Christmas time and we were having parties and family get-togethers, trying to act as if everything was normal for the children.

"He had been really fit and active man - he was never ill, he never went to the GP, but that Christmas he began feeling a bit shaky.

"He was sent for tests over the holidays and they discovered he had a tumour."

It was a devastating blow for Mr Proudlock's wife, Irene, and the rest of the family. A devoted husband, father and grandfather, he was well-known in his home town of Chester-le-Street, where he had worked for many years as a financial advisor.

A keen gardener and nature enthusiast, who was always there to help his two daughters with the odd DIY job, Mr Proudlock had always been an energetic man and a keen sailor in younger days.

Now he had to undergo endless rounds of chemotherapy and radiotherapy to fight the tumour's spread, but it became increasingly clear that, while the treatment was buying him time, it would not lead to recovery.

Mrs Spoors, a 38-year-old business consultant from Chester-le-Street, said: "He was really brave. He would go on a daily basis and have all of these chemicals pumped into him and never complained the whole time."

It was about this time that Macmillan Nurses put Mr Proudlock in contact with St Cuthbert's Hospice, where he could be offered support and his family could have some respite from the 24-hour care he needed.

Mrs Spoors said: "Once he got over the initial idea, he absolutely loved it - he couldn't believe there could such nice people there who were genuinely interested in helping him.

"He didn't just go there and sit in a chair, his mind was stimulated. He had an interest in the hospice gardens, when I used to see him he would tell me about how he had done in the quiz, what he had had for lunch.

"It wasn't awkward at all, it was such a happy place.

"He continued to go right up to October when he became too ill and it was too much for him to be taken there each week, even though he loved to go."

Once the initial shock of a loved one being diagnosed with a degenerative illness is over, the harsh reality of day-to-day caring for a dependent relative begins to sink in.

No matter how devastated a family may be, the wages still have to be earned, the mortgage has to be paid, the groceries need to be bought, relatives need to have their hair cut - practicalities it is hard to understand unless you have had to cope with someone suffering a long-term illness.

Mrs Proudlock was struggling with the heavy lifting involved in caring for her husband. At first, Mr Proudlock's bed was moved downstairs, but in the end he had to move into a nursing home.

What the family desperately needed was the sort of 24-hour care which St Cuthbert's hopes to offer in its new extension.

Mrs Spoors said: "My mam had reached breaking point. We tried every avenue to get night-time support as well as day-time - occasionally we could get a nurse to come and sit through the night, but it was every now and then and there was no continuity of care."

Mr Proudlock died in March 2004, a little over a year after his tumour had been diagnosed. His family continue to support the work of the hospice that cared for him during his final months.

"The hospice was a lifeline for us, but if the extension had been open then, we could have all had a break, knowing he was well looked after, and been stronger and better able to care for dad as a result.

"Respite means people can spend quality time with a person who is dying, not time being ratty and tired or worrying about day-to-day things.

"St Cuthbert's allows people to retain their dignity - it was somewhere he loved, somewhere he was familiar with, somewhere where people genuinely cared for him."