Claire House children's hospice _320
Ms Wright added that, although they would avoid it for as long as possible, the hospice might be forced to look at reducing care provision, too.
“We may look at the needs of the children we take, and children who require three nurses, we may have to take three of those children rather than four,” she said.
“We’ve never shut beds, but maybe it’s something we would have to look at. It’s quite difficult because the beds are all used. We know some families are not getting services.
“Before that, we’ll look at the hospice to home service and perhaps reduce that.”
Although the hospice enjoys support from some high-profile personalities, it can prove a mixed blessing.
A case in point were the reports that Coleen and Wayne Rooney had donated their £2.5m fee from OK magazine for wedding coverage was far off the mark. In fact, it was nearer £500.
“No matter how much we say we didn’t receive £2m, people still think we did,” said Ms Wright.
“It started with the papers saying Coleen and Wayne were giving £2m to their favourite charity.
“People have thought, ‘they’ve got that now’, but we didn’t.”
“I’m sure it was as embarrassing to them as it was to us, as they didn’t say that in the first place. They are strong supporters of the Claire House.”
But she’s confident the charity will ride out the economic downturn.
“We’ve been here 10 years and we’ll be here for the next 10 years. We just want to appeal to people to keep on giving generously.”
To find out how you can help Claire House Hospice, go to www.claire-house.org.uk
