Derbyshire’s Ashgate Hospice calls for Government support amid national “crisis” – as end of life care providers face £77m deficit and rapidly rising costs

Hospice UK, the national charity for hospice and end of life care, has revealed alarming findings in their recent survey of hospice finances.

According to the charity’s quarterly financial benchmarking survey, the UK hospice sector, which supports 300,000 people annually, is facing a collective estimated deficit of £77 million in the financial year 2023-24 - primarily fuelled by rapidly rising costs.

Barbara-Anne Walker, the Chief Executive for Ashgate Hospice, said the charity would need to raise nearly 70% of its funds from the north Derbyshire community - amounting to £11 million. She added that end of life care should not be funded in this way - and said there would be outrage if other healthcare services relied so heavily on donations.

“This year, 31% of our funding will come from the NHS - the rest has to be fundraised by our local community, whether it’s our shops, our sparkle night walk, people who run marathons or people who donate. That’s £11 million from the population of north Derbyshire.

“I’m really clear about it - I just don’t think that’s right. If that’s how we funded maternity services in the UK, there would be an absolute outcry, and with good reason - because it’s not right.

“The north Derbyshire community is just astonishing. I’ve worked in the charity sector for over 40 years and I’ve never worked for a charity that is so well supported by the community. It’s not fair to ask, especially now with the cost of living pressures.”

Hospice UK said that expenditure increases are the primary driver behind the funding crisis for end of life care providers across the country.

The charity said that, for hospices, the cost of paying their dedicated staff a fair wage is growing especially quickly. Their survey showed that payroll costs have surged by 11%, equalling approximately £130 million in additional spending over the full year.

The majority of hospice expenditure is spent on staff salaries. As vital partners to the NHS, hospices recruit from the same pool of staff, meaning they aim to match NHS pay and conditions to attract and retain skilled staff to care for people at the end of their lives.

But as statutory funding fails to keep up with sharply rising costs, hospices must foot these additional costs themselves through charitable fundraising.

Ashgate Hospice is backing Hospice UK’s campaign, calling on the Government to increase funding for hospices across the UK.

Barbara-Anne said: “This is a national campaign. This is about our umbrella body, Hospice UK, asking the Prime Minister and the Department of Health to get alongside local providers and to make some commitments about funding.

“A huge proportion of hospices are forecasting a deficit this year. As charities, none of us can continue to run deficits - that has to be resolved. We’re only in this work because we want to do better, we want to do more and we want to do what we do well.

“Every single one of us is going to die, it’s not something that only affects some of us. Every single one of us knows somebody or loves somebody who will die, and actually, the work that we do is part of the NHS provision.

It’s part of what the NHS is legally obliged to provide, under the Health and Care Act 2022 - it sets out an explicit requirement for the NHS to provide end of life care and palliative care, and they’re not paying for it.”

Barbara-Anne said that 29% of the beds at Ashgate Hospice were currently unavailable, with the charity unable to open them to patients - adding that greater security around funding for their services would help patients to live longer.

“At the moment, we have a 21-bed unit, but because of our funding challenges we can only open 15 beds. We opened some extra beds during the Covid-19 pandemic and we had some emergency funding for that, but we haven’t been able to open them again.

“The more security we have about our funding, the more we can do - we can care for more patients. The reality is that the earlier we can put in palliative care for somebody, they will live longer - that’s what the research tells us - they will be more comfortable and have a better quality of life.”

Discussing the seriousness of the financial struggles faced by Ashgate and other hospices, Barbara-Anne said that, if the Government and NHS failed to increase funding, some end of life care providers would have to consider cutting back their services.

“Ashgate cares for 2,400 people a year, but actually, we care for many more. When somebody is in our inpatient unit, or they’re at home being cared for by our nurses, we’re also looking after their family. We’re looking after their partner, spouse, children and grandchildren - that’s what we do.

“The NHS doesn’t have the ability to provide these services in north Derbyshire - nobody else can provide the specialist palliative care that we do. If we weren’t here, there would be nobody else to do it.”

“If we weren’t here, the 300,000 patients that hospices care for across the UK each year would end up in the NHS. We keep people out of hospitals and take pressure off the NHS. As a general rule, most people want to die at home. If they aren’t able to die at home, at the very least, they want to be somewhere that is safe, comfortable, private and respectful - that’s what we do.

“The reality is that, if this carries on, then at some point hospices will have to start looking at reducing services - which would be a terrible thing. It absolutely is a crisis - it really is getting quite frightening.”

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Jack Wood, Director of Income Generation at Ashgate Hospice, added: “The challenges facing hospices across the UK are deeply concerning. Here at Ashgate Hospice we face the stark reality that we need to raise £30,000 from our local community every single day in order to provide our care.

“We know that over 2,400 people in North Derbyshire will need our vital end of life care this year, and that need is only going to grow in the coming years. The sharp rise in living expenses, exacerbated by the current economic climate, further adds to our financial burden.

“With the number of patients needing our services projected to rise, our current funding levels will make it impossible to meet this growing demand. We know that 80% of people want to die at home, but we also know that 43% of people at the end of their life in Derbyshire died in hospital last year. This highlights a significant gap between people’s wishes for the end of their lives and the reality of where individuals ultimately receive care.

“As is the case for other hospices up and down the country, we urgently require additional support to alleviate the strain on our resources and ensure that everyone receives the end of life care they deserve - because we only ever have one chance to get it right.”

To find out more about how you can support Ashgate Hospice, head to their website here.