A GROUP of nurses were today (Friday) launching a vital new service to provide hospice care at home for people in East Hampshire. PALLS (palliative service) was set up by a group of 19 nurses who were made redundant when the King Edward VII Hospital near Midhurst closed more than a year ago. But now the nurses are launching a scheme at Wispers School in Haslemere to provide people in Hampshire, West Sussex and Surrey with a unique 'hospice at home' service, using the skills of healthcare assistants, qualified nurses and senior nurses. Jacinta Grange-Bennett, a director of PALLS and a staff nurse at King Edward VII Hospital for more than four years, came up with the idea and has been supported by her colleagues and husband, Nicholas, in setting up the service. She told The Herald that the nurses from the hospital had decided to get together because "we love what we do and we wanted to give something back after we lost the Macmillan unit providing end-of-life care". She went on to say: "It is really because we do not want to stop doing what we do." Not all the PALLS staff worked at the King Edward Macmillan unit, with some coming to the service having previously worked in other departments. Ms Grange-Bennett said that it had been a "struggle" over the past year to get the service ready to launch, including carrying out extensive criminal records checks and registering PALLS nurses to provide care in the home. But she added that the team had received "wonderful support" from St Wilfrid's Hospice in Chichester to help provide ongoing palliative training. PALLS is now based in offices at the Passfield Business Centre, just outside Liphook. The new base also houses the last bed from the King Edward VII Hospital, which was saved by the nurses and is now used for training exercises. The service is also linked with the Haslemere-based Apollo group, which provides home care around the town. Ms Grange-Bennett said the reaction from members of the public had been "amazing" and added that families were "so grateful for the service we provide". She also said that PALLS was actively looking to recruit more staff. "We are beginning to realise the more we are out there, the more need there is for nurses." She went on to say that the needs of each patient were individually assessed and depended on the nature and progress of the condition being dealt with. Ms Grange-Bennett said that nurses could visit a house two or three times at any point during the day or night on every day of the week if required. She said PALLS staff even continued to support families after the death of a patient. She also pointed out that government policy dictated that anyone receiving end-of-life care had the right to choose whether to die at home or in hospital. PALLS has provided care for 19 patients since last August, with the majority of their work coming from primary care trusts across Hampshire, Surrey and West Sussex. The group also liaises with district nurses and GPs, and Ms Grange-Bennett believed this meant PALLS was "pioneering a new concept in the hospice movement" which, she said, made the service "unique". Ms Grange-Bennett added that there was a clear need for end-of-life care in the area, in particular for nurses qualified to deliver the proper medication and to oversee and administer care. "It's been a wonderful experience and we want to see it extend and expand in the way we know it should, because it is needed." The launch of the PALLS service comes almost exactly a year after the shock closure of the King Edward VII Hospital, near Midhurst. The hospital closed after private health company Capio pulled out of a deal to build a new 120-bed hospital on the site, as part of an overall conversion which would also have seen 200 luxury apartments and the development of a further 166 homes in the 120-acre grounds. The announcement left more than 200 full and part-time staff out of work, and also saw the closure of the hospital's Macmillan Cancer Unit. MP Virginia Bottomley and Chichester MP Andrew Tyrie were due to attend the launch.