UK hospices are facing a collective deficit of £100m (Image: Daily Mirror/Andy Stenning)
Multi-million pound bank fines should be redistributed and used to throw a lifeline to the struggling hospice sector, those caring for the terminally ill say.
Campaigners want penalties levied by the Financial Conduct Authority on institutions guilty of shady practices to be passed to facilities threatened with closure because of a deepening cash crisis.
They claim urgent action could see £150 million could be injected into a system by March.
Banks have already been fined more than £121.5 million this year for a variety of breaches, including treatment of customers, fraud failings and serious system and control failures. The bulk of the money is passed to the Treasury.
The idea has the backing of scores of hospice bosses and MPs.
Tony Collins, Chief Executive of Herriot Hospice Homecare in North Yorkshire, said: “We need funding now and cannot wait any longer. Hospice beds are closing and community services are reducing at the same time the need is growing. This is a crisis and it needs a response now.”
Wayne de Leeuw, Chief Executive of Dorothy House Hospice Care in Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, said: “Forget the theory that demand for hospice care is expected to rise by 28% by 2040, or that 70% of hospices are running deficits.
“Hospices the length and breadth of the country continue to quietly step up, offering people the choice to remain at home for terminal care, taking pressure off NHS partners and providing compassionate and personalised care.
“But this is a rapidly shrinking offer as each week announcements are made of hospices making the painful decision to reduce beds and cut community services. They need financial support now so that people continue to have the choice to receive care in the place of their choosing and the local hospital and system can do what it does well – urgent, unplanned and elective care.”
The hospice funding crisis ‘can’t go on’ (Image: Humphrey Nemar)
One fifth of hospices have slashed services and scores have warned staff of widespread redundancies amid the worst cash crisis in memory.
Latest figures show hospices are facing a collective deficit of £100 million.
Hospices are almost exclusively charities relying on voluntary income to continue lifeline services.
Across Britain 200 facilities, collectively caring for 300,000 adults and children, have to fundraise 80 per cent of their income from local communities, but the reservoir of goodwill is drying up. Two thirds are receiving no more, or reduced levels, of taxpayer-funded support.
The average adult hospice in England gets 32 per cent of its funding from health budgets, while children’s hospices receive 17 per cent.
Without a rapid cash injection, services like symptom control, short breaks and end of life care could be at risk, leaving families who are already struggling even more isolated and exhausted.
Reform UK leader was “debanked” by Coutts last year when it closed his account because the institution did not agree with his political views. The resulting uproar forced the resignation of NatWest boss Dame Alison Rose and saw it a grovelling apology.
Mr Farage said: “The hospice sector is in desperate trouble and every single one of us at one point will need to avail ourselves of it. I think [funding hospices with fines] would be a decent, magnanimous gesture and way of them saying sorry.”
Most facilities providing end-of-life care are operating in the red and look set to follow suit in a crisis experts said would flood the NHS.
Toby Porter, chief executive of Hospice UK, said: “Anecdotally, we think around a fifth of hospices are already making cuts and with the level of deficits in the sector, this will only go up. This situation can’t go on.”
Mr Farage says passing bank fines to hospices would be a ‘magnanimous gesture’ (Image: Getty Images)
The FCA operates independently of the Government but cash from fines helps to fund public services like the NHS, police, and schools.
Birmingham Hospice warned suffocating financial pressures had forced it to slash inpatient beds and cut the equivalent of 45 full-time roles – 14% of its overall workforce. It was forced to act because of “unsustainable rising costs” and an estimated £2.4 million deficit budget this year.
Cat Eccles, the Labour MP for Stourbridge, said: “Hospices provide truly invaluable support and the need for further funding is greater than ever. I recently visited the Mary Stevens Hospice, a wonderful initiative to drum up funds, however, the reality is that redirecting the first £100 million from the FCA every year would make a great difference to the care provided in this sector.”
Philanthropist and campaigner Corin Dalby, who is due to present a petition to Number 10 next week, said: “The 200 hospices operating across the UK provide essential support and end-of-life care to 300,000 of the nation’s most vulnerable children and adults.
“But across the country they face multiple cuts and job losses, which are taking a devastating toll on their ability to serve the most vulnerable.
“This is an opportunity to make a lasting difference to the lives of countless families at their most vulnerable moments.
“This approach mirrors the precedent set with the allocation of Libor fines, ensuring that funds derived from financial misconduct benefit the public good. FCA fines could not be put to better use than supporting hospices in their vital mission.”