St Christopher’s takes funding crisis to parliament

We hosted a pop-up charity shop in parliament on Thursday as part of Hospice Care Week.

We were in parliament on Thursday 10 October, taking the funding crisis direct to politicians.

Research has revealed that for the first time more money was spent in hospice charity shops than hospices received from government, as the sector struggles with the mounting financial pressures of providing vital end-of-life care.

Alongside Hospice UK, which represents more than 200 hospices nationwide, we spent Hospice Care Week both celebrating our incredible retail staff, dedicated volunteers and generous customers, whilst also warning that second hand shops and other local fundraising cannot be responsible for plugging the projected funding gap in hospice care this year.

This culminated in our event on Thursday where we opened a pop-up charity shop in Westminster alongside Hospice UK and invited MPs to come and learn about end-of-life care and the funding crisis.

We sent along a senior nurse, Eva Trowers, and our Director of Quality and Innovation, Jan Noble, to speak with MPs.

The research reveals that charity shops would have to sell 5,375 pairs of jeans to fund a palliative care nurse for a year and a further 43,000 blouses to provide a patient with a hospice bed for the same period of time.

Hospice UK are calling for emergency support from government to stem the tide of hospice cutbacks, and for long term reform of hospice funding so that hospices are fairly funded for the services they provide.

Tom Abbott, Director of Communications and Income Generation at St Christopher’s, also attended the event, as did Ginger Bujdoso, our Director of Retail and Emily Baddeley, our Head of Communications.

Tom said: “As the home of the modern hospice movement which Dame Cicely Saunders started, St Christopher’s has a crucial role to play in the campaign to fix end of life care funding.

“We told MPs on Thursday that standard funding should be agreed for per person across the country so that no matter where they are, everyone receives the same support.”

Eva Trowers, nurse and Clinical Team Lead at St Christopher’s, said: “On a normal day I’m visiting people in their own homes and working alongside a dedicated team to deliver high quality end of life care. But this week I was in parliament to tell policy makers how vital hospice and palliative care is to people and why we need a better funding model.

“We will all die and we should all have the opportunity to have palliative care when we need it. We need this new model so we can continue to invest in our workforce and care so that everyone can have access to high quality end of life care and die well in the place that they want to be.”

To help stick up for Hospice Care please write to your local MP and ask them to raise the issue of hospice funding in parliament. Hospice UK have a template letter here.

Please also sign up to our mailing list to keep up to date with news and campaigns from the home of the modern hospice movement. Sign up here.