Sutton: More end-of-life care funding needed, says hospice chief

A south London hospice has made several staff redundant and cut services because funding levels are failing to meet rising operating costs, its chief executive has said.

Nick Stevens said St Raphael’s Hospice’s operating costs have risen by £1m over the last four years but only received a £140,000 uplift from the NHS, which provides a quarter of the charity’s funding.

Among the cuts was the disbandment of the “hospice at home” service which serves the local area.

The NHS in south west London said it has invested uplifts in line with what it had received. The government said funding challenges will “take time to fix”.

Mr Stevens said they have had to reduce their clinical nurse community team by 20%.

“That is a real tragedy. We’ve lost members with decades of expertise and experience who have supported hundreds of people through the last stages of their lives,” he said.

Mr Stevens described such staff as “irreplaceable” and their loss will have a “detrimental impact” on the services offered by the hospice.

Luke Taylor, the recently elected Lib Dem MP for Sutton and Cheam, told BBC London while on a visit to St Raphael’s that people have contacted him to say they were “scared” about losing the services.

“It’s incredibly important that we can rely on services like these to be there when we need it,” he said.

Fiona Duppenbecker, whose partner Alastair died from cancer about three weeks ago, said the hospice was “the best thing that could have happened to us” in his final weeks.

“The last couple of months of Alastair’s life became really challenging both for him but also [for the family],” she said.

Ms Duppenbecker said her partner’s brain tumour caused him to have mobility issues that required more care.

She said the specialist nurses providing the care “meant we could just be his family again”.

Chief nursing officer for the NHS in south west London Elaine Clancy said: “We are doing everything we can to support our local hospices who do vital work, this is amidst financial pressures across all NHS services – GPs, hospitals, community and mental health.

“Over the last few years, we have invested in line with the uplifts we have received to our funding and St Raphael’s has now accepted a funding increase for this year.”

A Department of Health spokesperson has said the new Labour government has “inherited huge challenges in the hospice sector”.

“We want everyone to have access to high-quality end of life care, which is why we require all local NHS bodies to commission services to meet the needs of their local populations,” they added.