Queenscourt Hospice Joins Nationwide Plea for Financial Support
Queenscourt Hospice featured prominently on BBC Breakfast TV to highlight today's crisis meeting at Downing Street on hospice care . It was made clear that many of us at some point will depend on their highly-valued support and compassion.
Hospice leaders and staff from across England are gathering at 10 Downing Street today, to hand-deliver a letter to the Prime Minister demanding urgent action on funding, as service cuts and rising costs reach a critical breaking point Nearly 60% of hospices are cutting frontline services, with 380 beds currently out of use across England.
Across the country the hospice movement is over £60M in debt. Two thirds of hospice funding is raised by the hospice movement itself
"The problem is structural,” says Cllr John Pugh (Liberal Democrat) , “ and recognised as such by everyone."
There really needs to be a new funding model whereby hospices like the mainsteam NHS get a proper uplift when the pay of medical professionals is raised by the government. State support for hospices is in any case variable by region and a bit of a lottery. Queenscourt does not get the same deal as hospices in other parts of the UK. Recent government decisions on pay and national insurance on a national level though have significantly impacted on their finances.
That doesn’t seem right when the hospices are a key and treasured element of our health system.
The National Audit Office highlighted the problem; both Houses of Parliament - Lords and Commons- have underlined it in reports, and, to be fair, the government has acknowledged we need a more sustainable system.
For months though people have been running petitions and sounding the warnings, but the Department of Health is distracted by other priorities and the resident doctors pay dispute Government funds are worryingly under greater pressure now than when the alarm was first raised.”
We await the response from the government and this is a case where warm words are not a solution.”