Mountbatten has warned it will have to make cuts to its services over the next 18 months as it struggles to obtain enough funding from the NHS.
The charity, which runs hospices on the Isle of Wight and in Southampton and which is the largest provider of hospice care in Hampshire, will launch a public consultation this autumn.
Mountbatten, which also provides psychology and bereavement counselling and 24/7 specialist palliative care at home, both on the Island and across large parts of Hampshire, will ask residents or the two counties what services are most important to them, and talk through the implications should any services need to stop.
Mountbatten’s AGM, was held on Thursday, July 25.
Attendees heard the number of people being given specialist palliative care by Mountbatten has risen by 250 per cent on the Isle of Wight in five years and, over the same period, by 90 per cent across Hampshire.
Two thirds of Mountbatten’s funding comes from the community, which Nigel said is ‘alive and well’. A third comes via the NHS organisation responsible for planning health services – the Integrated Care Board for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (ICB).
While Mountbatten’s costs have gone up by eight to ten per cent in the last year, the NHS has uplifted its contribution by just 0.6 per cent. Concerned the organisation has lost sight of the people who desperately need care, Nigel accused the ICB of being too focussed on saving money.
He warned of ‘catastrophic consequences’ if the increase in need for Mountbatten’s expert care and kindness is not addressed, and matched by a financial commitment from the NHS.
Thanking fundraisers and supporters across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Nigel said he is proud of Mountbatten’s staff and volunteers, who are delivering high quality care during unprecedented times.
He said:
“They are working through times I’ve never seen to be so challenging, during the almost 40 years I have worked in hospice care."
Mountbatten’s Chair of Trustees, Sir Ian Cheshire, added:
“We will fight over the NHS funding. We are not going to accept this. We are not going to sit back and wait for it.”
Nigel called on the new government to make ‘putting the health and social care system back together’ its absolute imperative and warned ‘difficult decisions will be made’ in the coming months.
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