Keech Hospice warns of potential service cuts amid financial challenges
Keech Hospice is already spending £26,000 per day to run its services
A hospice across Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Milton Keynes says it can't rule out making cuts to frontline services as it is facing a financial “cliff edge”.
Keech Hospice based in Luton is already spending £26,000 per day to run its services, and is experiencing rising costs and increased demand.
For example, the hospice says that the hike in Employers National Insurance alone added another £300,000 to its costs each year.
Liz Searle, CEO of Keech Hospice is calling on the Government to provide a sustainable funding model.
She said: It feels like we're approaching a cliff edge and it's really hard to know what to do about that. We can manage our costs, we can ask our community to continue to support, but the cost pressures are so great, and the demand is escalating so fast, that we are really struggling to be sustainable.
Adding: “I fear that the sector will be unrecognisable. I fear that we'll see more hospice service closures, a scaling back of services, and unfortunately more people at their end of life who will find themselves without the care that they need. Unless this is rectified, it's a very bleak picture.”
“We are very lucky that we have a great community who supports us really well and without them, we wouldn't exist, but we do need a more sustainable funding model”, she said.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Hospices do incredible work to support people and families when they need it most and are facing incredibly tough pressures.
“This Government has made the biggest investment in hospices in a generation, £125 million, to improve hospice facilities, freeing other funding for patient care, and has also committed £80 million for children’s and young people’s hospices over three years.
“We will soon set out our plans to modernise and improve the palliative and end-of-life care sector, as we shift more healthcare out of hospitals and into the community, with hospices playing a central role in delivering care closer to home.”