THE camaraderie at Kemp Hospice is helping to make one patient's life worth living.

Sixty-seven-year-old Peter Simmons is terminally ill with bone cancer but values the company he gets from his trips to the hospice - especially as he lives alone.

He visits three times a week and as well as chatting to friends he also benefits from the therapies on offer.

"You get to know one another and after a while you become a bit like a family - there's only 12 of us a day at most.

"Now and then we get out - we go to the seaside or the pub. You need a drop of oil or you seize up!"

He added: "Kemp is somewhere to go. If it wasn't for the hospice I'd be stuck in the house most of the day."

Mr Simmons finds the treatments soothe the pain that comes with his condition. "The reflexology and aromatherapy seem to help my back and spine. I wouldn't have the chance to get them without the hospice.

"And the volunteers are very good. There's nothing they wouldn't do if you asked them. Most of them have been nurses or are nurses and they don't get paid."

Like many patients, Mr Simmons likes the intimate atmosphere at the current site but recognises the benefits that the £2.2 million expansion plans, due to be completed by 2004, will bring.

"Being small means we're all together but it is a bit cramped. When we get the new place it will be much better in that people will be able to stay overnight."

On top of the five-bed inpatient unit the purpose-built centre will also enable the hospice to increase the number of day care places to 18 and offer a wider range of complementary therapies.