St Mary's Hospice in Ulverston is 'facing crisis' with funding

The warning comes as Lancashire and South Cumbria hospices, including St Mary’s Hospice in Ulverston, have been informed that the local Integrated Care Board has offered them a zero per cent uplift on their 2022-23 funding.

This stands in contrast to other regions where hospices have received an average uplift of 2.7 per cent.

Reacting to the news, South Lakes MP Tim Farron urged the Health Minister Helen Whately to intervene over a funding crisis facing hospices in Cumbria and Lancashire.

Speaking during a Westminster Hall debate, Mr Farron read out a letter from the Chief Executive of St Mary’s Hospice Val Stangoe which said that the 'zero per cent uplift equates to almost 10 per cent in cuts’ and that the decision has ‘left our hospices in a state of financial deficit, with potential loss of hospice beds and services.’

He said: “What we need to remember is that the costs of running a hospice have gone through the roof in recent times.

“The disproportionate treatment faced by hospices in our community is unfair and must be addressed.”

Karl Connor, head of communications and community engagement at St Mary’s Hospice, said: “We are grateful that Mr Farron raised our case during the debate in the house and for his ongoing support. This is a national issue that we feel the impact of locally.

“With inflation as it is, not receiving an increase equates to almost a 10 per cent cut in real terms. This comes at a time when demand for our services is at the highest it has ever been, and at a time when we’re adding new services and trying to serve even more people across our community: Furness and South Lakes.

“The amount of money each hospice receives is different in different parts of the UK, and ours is historically at the lower end of the scale. We only get 22 per cent of our funding from Government. If you lay this across the calendar year, our Government funding for 2023 ran out way back in March, meaning every patient we care for beyond that has their care funded by our local community.

“We do understand that our colleagues in the ICB are stretched in terms of funding from Government themselves and are faced with making some difficult decisions. As a nation we are facing a crisis in the not-too-distant future if we don’t rethink the way we pay for palliative care. We believe that everyone deserves comfort, choice and dignity in death. But that will become ever harder to provide without improving the funding model.

“In the meantime, if members of the public want to help (and thankfully many do), they can find out how to support us on our website.”

Responding to Mr Farron’s comments, Helen Whately MP, the minister responsible for end-of-life care said: “I have been seeking transparency about the extent to which some of that funding has or has not gone to hospices.

“And I have been seeking the data on what is going on with the rates that are being paid to hospices, the extent to which they have or have not gone up so we can have the transparency of the extent to which the funding that has gone to Integrated Care Boards to support with inflation, is going to hospices to help with services.”

A spokeswoman from Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board said: "The ICB is facing severe financial pressures, which means we have to apply scrutiny to all of our spending.  
“As part of this, we are currently undertaking a whole system review of all contracts held by the ICB to ensure value for money. We will be meeting with the Lancashire and South Cumbria hospice leaders to discuss this further.”