The closure and sale of St Peter's Hospice in Knowle was always going to provoke widespread emotion.

For the building is the spiritual home of the hospice. It is also the place where many, many people saw their loved ones nursed and cared for. It is also the place where many passed away.

What St Peter's have tried to do is to find a balance between their income, their costs and maintaining the service which they offer.

They say that a growing number of people who are suffering from terminal illnesses prefer to die at home. And they say by using their nurses to care for people at home as they did when the hospice was originally founded is the way to achieve that.

They also say that they can continue to care for people and offer respite care to help relatives at the purpose-built Brentry hospice.

But the problem they have had from the moment they announced their plans is that to the average person it appears the hospice is less than it was.

St Peter's may be as committed to them as ever, offering nursing and support. But there is no question that once the doors of the Knowle hospice closed, people in south Bristol lost a focal point for St Peter's. For them Brentry may as well be a world away.

The sale of the Knowle hospice, together with the decision not to establish a new hospice on the south Bristol hospital site, may well add to that sense of abandonment and loss.