Earl Mountbatten Hospice has undergone a re-branding and will now be known as ‘Mountbatten’, thanks to a very generous gift in kind from a Ventnor-based international marketing expert.
Stephen Izatt, who runs the agency Thinkfarm, has gifted the charity a way to better tell the story of how the Island’s amazing fundraising supports Islanders and their families when they need the hospice the most. Working with Luisa Parsons, an Island-based member of his team who has close personal experience of care from the Island’s hospice, a new name and look has been created, which now reflects the many, growing and different services on offer.
As of today (Tuesday 3rd April), the whole organisation that was Earl Mountbatten Hospice will be known as ‘Mountbatten’. The word hospice will continue to be used where it refers to the physical building in Newport, ‘Mountbatten Hospice’.
The 10 hospice shops across the Isle of Wight will become more local and relevant to their local populations, through the use of their town’s name in the shop title, for example ‘Mountbatten Ryde’, ‘Mountbatten Ventnor’ and so on. The Care at Home teams will be known as ‘Mountbatten at Home’, and nurses and carers who work across the organisation will be known as ‘Mountbatten Nurses’ and ‘Mountbatten Carers’.
The whole Island community, including fundraisers and other supporters, are being encouraged to join the movement to make the biggest difference across the Island and continue to raise awareness and funds at events which will be in partnership together, for example ‘Walk the Wight with Mountbatten’ and ‘Santa Dash with Mountbatten’ etc.
Nigel Hartley, Chief Executive, has said:
“Often you hear people say ‘the Hospice’ when they talk about our service and usually they mean the 16 beds at our building in Newport. But this is just the tip of the iceberg of what we do. Recently someone mentioned to me that they do not support us as they believe that £7m per annum for 16 beds is rather expensive. We have to help people to understand the growing breadth of what we offer.
“Thanks to our Island’s fantastic fundraising support, on any one day we also provide 24/7 care to over 650 people who are facing death and dying in their own homes. This number continues to grow, through our new and innovative services such as the Mountbatten Coordination Centre and our expanding domiciliary (personal) care services, where we are supporting hundreds more people. People also don’t realise that we have our own team based at St Mary’s Hospital, providing education programmes for professionals and supporting hundreds of patients to return home to the places that the live as quickly as possible.
Article continues below this advertisement “It is also important to understand that we have never solely cared for people with cancer. Every day, our experts support those living with cancer, but also older people living with increasing frailty, those living with dementia (which is now confirmed as the biggest cause of death across the UK), heart failure and other more long-term life threatening illness. Through our Mountbatten Coordination Centre, we are able to reach Islanders much sooner in their illness, so we can better plan together for their future care and make sure their wishes are known. Our Island-wide bereavement service caters for all ages, including children, and for anyone who has been bereaved, wherever the death may have occurred, even if not under the care of Mountbatten.”
Alongside the new name, a new logo retains the iconic sunflower but it has been simplified with the poignant addition of one petal gently departing from the main flower. There is also a new strapline, which describes the 3 core elements of Mountbatten’s work: living, dying, remembering. This highlights that Mountbatten’s support extends to many areas of people’s lives.
As well as Stephen Izatt’s invaluable support, a £10,000 donation specifically given to provide a change of this nature has been made available to launch the new look, which will firstly be used to create new signage for Mountbatten buildings.
Nigel Hartley said:
“I have been surprised by some people’s commitment to changing the way we look. People have been very clear that helping us replace our signage and look will help how our Island community perceives us. Without this very specific donation, and without Stephen’s incredible support, we simply wouldn’t have been able to achieve this.
“We are very mindful of spending precious resources wisely, and we are very clear that we will not waste funding on changing everything at once. We will use up old stocks before we print new stock, and we will not be changing our uniforms until they have worn out. You may notice that this year’s Walk the Wight will carry our old name and branding, for the reasons described above, and you will still see our old branding for some months to come.”
Stephen Izatt said:
“It’s been a delight to work with Nigel and the team to develop a new brand identity and messaging that helps them communicate the diversity of support delivered by the Mountbatten team into our Island communities. Charity fundraising is a competitive business. We sincerely hope that applying our thinking and experience from the commercial world will help to encourage much-needed donations.”
You can read more information about the changes on Mountbatten’s website www.mountbatten.org.uk.
