Hospice forced to close due to lack of funding

Oct 2 2007 by Paula Owens, Liverpool Daily Post

AN ORMSKIRK hospice which has provided care for the terminally-ill for the last 25 years yesterday announced it is preparing to close down in two months’ time.

St Joseph’s Hospice, also known as Jospice, based at Hettinga House in Dark Lane, has been struggling to survive for around two years.

The hospice’s 34 employees – including nurses, care assistants, caterers, administrators and maintenance staff – yesterday received letters detailing a proposal to close at the start of December.

The hospice, which also has a base in Thornton, near Crosby, announced it has stopped taking new patients and says they will help to find alternative arrangements for their remaining six patients.

Last night, the charity’s general manager Keith Cawdron said: “This is a very sad day for Jospice, and one we have done everything possible to avoid.

“This is the last resort. We are consulting staff on the proposal and the details of it.

“We didn’t bring this forward until we’d run out of alternatives. The situation is extremely serious. You don’t tell staff something like this until you are driven to it.

“Our staff have been living with uncertainty for a long time so were probably to an extent prepared for this. Having said that, when you have a letter in front of you it’s pretty grim.

“Many of them have been with Jospice for a long time – it’s been a large part of their lives.”

According to Mr Cawdron, the problem has arisen mainly due to a sharp decrease in the legacy income on which the charity depends to sustain its work. In 2006-07, it received £650,000 from this source and is this year likely to receive less than half of that.

He added that the funding shortage has meant underlying problems, such as the building’s poor state of repair, have never been addressed.

Mr Cawdron said: “Since we publicised the threat to the hospice, we have been pursuing ways to address these problems by providing a new hospice on our beautiful site. We have pursued joint ventures with other charities, a housing association, and developers. All have come to nothing. We were turned down in an application to the Department of Health for a grant that would have made all the difference.”

He added: “The financial pressure on the charity has become unsustainable. We are looking at a deficit for the year which we simply cannot cope with, and we have no reserves to cushion us.

“Faced with all these factors, we have been driven to the point where we see no alternative if the whole charity is not to be threatened. We would love to continue to serve the people of West Lancashire and are still pursuing options which might enable us to reopen in a new unit.

“But we cannot carry on as we are any longer.”

The hospice will not close until its existing patients have found a suitable alternative form of care.

Mr Cawdron said: “We hope two months will be enough for patients to find something else. We are notifying their families and carers of the situation and will do all we can to help find alternatives.

“I’d like to thank all those who have supported us and all our staff, who for months have been delivering excellent care despite knowing we’ve been on financial knife edge.”

paulaowens