Hospice funding crisis: an urgent message

Hospice funding crisis: an urgent message 
ehospice, UK Edition; by Helen Simmons, Chief Executive of St. Christopher's; 8/14/24 
Growing numbers of people need hospice support – in the last year alone the number of home visits completed by our teams at St. Christopher’s increased by 10%. But many hospices – one in five – are either cutting specialist palliative and end of life services in the last year or plan to do so. Fortunately, we are not one of those at the moment. ... NHS funding has failed to keep up with the increase in demand and expenditure. We are increasingly relying on people leaving gifts in wills, running marathons and donating clothes to deliver our core services. The model is breaking. ... At St. Christopher’s we receive 34% of our income from the NHS – for the remaining 66% we rely on the generosity of the community. Hospices should not have to rely on the generosity of the community to provide essential healthcare services. ... 
Editor's Note: St. Christopher's is the first hospice of the modern hospice movement, pioneered by Dame Cicely Saunders in London, UK, in 1967.