THE idea of a hospice is said to have been born out of an ecumenical prayer meeting at Wolverley Church towards the end of the 1960s.

It was the desire of Rev Jennifer Binnian, a lay member of the Anglican Church at the time, to translate prayer into action that led to the setting up of a charity "to provide for the educational, recreational and spiritual needs of the area."

But it was not until 1980 that the Kemp Trust was founded by Mrs Binnian, who along with Tess Grantham, a Roman Catholic, and the late Betty Davis, a solicitor and member of the United Reform Church, started a home-visiting service.

With a wider group of church women, they helped provide support to patients and their families in their own homes.

They put down strong roots to ensure continuing growth and the next stage of development was to set up a training programme led by two psychotherapists for everyone who had direct contact with patients.

The name Kemp stands for the Kidderminster Ecumenical Mission Project and, coincidentally, is also part of the name of Mrs Binnian's late father, auctioneer Stanley Kemp Cattell.

Kemp House, in Sutton Park Road, opened in 1992, initially offering a one-day-a-week service run entirely by volunteers. Its rapid expansion to five days week made it clear that professional staff would have to be brought in.

A Macmillan Nurse was based at the hospice in June 1993, a few months later a nurse-manager was taken on and in 1994 a day-nurse joined the team.

Next to be appointed was a transport co-ordinator to ensure people from all over the district could use the hospice.

As Kemp grew, secretarial support staff were needed, an occupational therapist, physiotherapist and fundraisers.

Today there are 20 paid employees and around 150 volunteers, including those in the shops, the first of which opened in 1993. The services of a team of complementary therapists are also bought in.