Rev Prue Dufour MBETHE founder of Dorothy House Hospice in Winsley has died of a brain tumour at the age of 61. The Rev Prue Dufour MBE, died on Saturday at St Margaret's Hospice in Taunton.

Sarah Whitfield, chief executive of Dorothy House, said: "Prue was an inspirational leader in the hospice movement both in this country and internationally.

"She founded Dorothy House to improve the care of people dying at home, which is still where most of our care is given."

Mrs Dufour, then a nurse at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, set up the Dorothy House Foundation at her Bath home in 1976.

She was driven by a desire to ensure that terminally ill patients could spend their last days in their own homes or within a hospice in their own communities rather than in the clinical environment of a hospital.

Irene Weller was one of the first nurses to work with Mrs Dufour at Dorothy House, and is still a volunteer at the hospice.

She said: "She was full of ideas, very dynamic, a great leader and with it all she had a very real sense of humility."

Mrs Dufour chose the name Dorothy House to reflect her deep Christian faith Dorothy means 'gift of God'.

The foundation's first in-patient unit, for six people, opened in 1979, in Bloomfield Road, Bath.

In 1980 it expanded into a neighbouring property, which was used as an administration and education centre. In 1985 day care was opened, providing support for 10 patients for two sessions a week.

By 1990 the team of carers based at Dorothy House had grown to a multi-professional group of nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, a chaplain, pharmacy and support staff, including a large number of volunteers.

Marjorie Coulthard, senior physiotherapist at the hospice, said: "She felt very strongly that patients could be getting on with life and that it was possible to live life to the full until the day you die.

In 1995 the need for more space resulted in a move to Winsley, where the hospice has been based since.

Mrs Dufour left to work at Thames Valley Hospice, in Windsor, but retained a keen interest in Dorothy House.