Hospices relying more on charity shops than government funding, warns South London hospice

A South London hospice is heading to parliament to warn MPs that the modern hospice movement faces a “national funding crisis”.

St Christopher’s Hospice has warned that hospices receive more money from their charity shops than government for the first time ever. 

Eva Trowers, a St Christopher’s nurse, will meet politicians at a pop-up charity shop at Westminster on Thursday, October 10. 

Tom Abbott, Director of Communications and Income Generation at St Christopher’s, said: “Although it’s fantastic to see how popular hospice charity shops are across the country, it is not a sustainable funding model.

“Hospices up and down the country are now increasingly relying on the goodwill of their supporters to maintain frontline services. This is unacceptable.”

Research by Hospice UK showed that charity shops would have to sell 5,375 pairs of jeans to fund a palliative care nurse for a year. Selling 43,000 blouses would provide a patient with a hospice bed for just one year. 

Hospice UK is calling for emergency support from government to stem the tide of hospice cutbacks, and long-term reform of hospice funding.

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’m heading to 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.”

St Christopher’s provides care and support to people across the five London boroughs of Southwark, Bromley, Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham.

It has 24 high street shops staffed largely run by volunteers in areas including Dulwich, Crystal Palace, Sydenham and Streatham.