Hospice ready to spell out case to MPs for better funding model
A nurse from St Christopher’s Hospice in Sydenham is heading to Parliament to urge MPs to rethink its funding model for end-of-life care homes.
More money is now spent nationally in hospice charity shops than is given by NHS grants, according to Hospice UK, the national body for hospices.
Alongside Hospice UK, which represents more than 200 hospices nationwide, St Christopher’s, which is in Lawrie Park Road, is keen to flag up the work carried out by its retail staff, dedicated volunteers and generous customers.
But it also wants to warn that second-hand shops and other local fundraising cannot be responsible for plugging the projected funding gap in hospice care this year.
Its research reveals that charity shops would have to sell 5,375 pairs of jeans to fund a palliative care nurse for a year, and a further 43,000 blouses to provide a patient with a hospice bed for the same period of time.
Tom Abbott, director of communications and income generation at St Christopher’s, said: “Although it’s fantastic to see how popular hospice charity shops are across the country, it is not a sustainable funding model.
“Hospices up and down the country are now increasingly relying on the goodwill of their supporters to maintain frontline services. This is unacceptable.
“Although we at St Christopher’s are not facing funding difficulties currently, as the home of the modern hospice movement which Dame Cicely Saunders started, we have a crucial role to campaign the government to fix end of life care funding.”
Hospice UK are calling for emergency support from government to stem the tide of hospice cutbacks, and for long term reform of hospice funding so that hospices are fairly funded for the services they provide.
Senior nurse Eva Trowers from St Christopher’s will be meeting politicians at a St Christopher’s and Hospice UK pop-up charity shop at Westminster on Thursday to further highlight the issue and encourage the government to listen.
Ms Trowers said: “On a normal day, I’m visiting people in their own homes and working alongside a dedicated team to deliver high quality end of life care, but this week I’m heading to parliament to tell policy makers how vital hospice and palliative care is to people and why we need a better funding model.
“We will all die and we should all have the opportunity to have palliative care when we need it. We need this new model so we can continue to invest in our workforce and care so that everyone can have access to high quality end of life care and die well in the place that they want to be.”
Picture: Rachel Manns /St Christopher’s Hospice