Care at Christmas: New year will be one of challenges for Shropshire hospice

Severn Hospice is always a joyful place at Christmas. The dedicated staff wouldn't allow it to be any other way. But as the decorations come down, and the Shropshire Star's Care at Christmas campaign draws to a close, chief executive Heather Tudor is keen to focus on the year ahead.

Heather says the campaign has given the hospice a crucial boost at Christmas, but points out that raising awareness about the charity's work - and much-needed funds - is an all-year-round affair.

"We're incredibly grateful to the Shropshire Star and their interest in us, the coverage has been fantastic, and inevitably that will prompt some people to think 'this is our hospice, we can't have it deteriorate, we can't afford t have it reduce services'," she says.

"Raising awareness is a constant battle for us, there are so many charities out there, and they are all very important, but having a hospice in your county is incredibly important, I think, particularly with the pressures on the NHS organisations. Care would otherwise have to be in hospitals."  

Heather expects 2025 to be a tough year, hit by a double whammy of rising costs and a broader economic climate which makes it more difficult to raise funds. 

"We're concerned that our costs are increasing, and at the same time it's getting harder for our supporters to support us," she says.

She says the increase in National Insurance, announced by the Chancellor in the Budget last autumn, means the hospice has to raise an extra £500,000 a year just to cover that. And while the Government has announced it will be making an extra £126 million available to hospices nationally, the details are still sketchy.

"We're not altogether clear whether it's a one-off, we think it is, and whether it's to be attached to capital projects, which seems to be the indication," she says.

"But we've got robust financial management plans in place, and we will continue to do everything we can to maintain the current levels of service.

"We feel optimistic, we will just keep doing what we've been doing, making sure we're efficient and spending every pound wisely, and avoiding any cuts in services. But I can't say, hand on heart, that we'll always be able to do that if we can't increase levels of income."

The big project for 2025 will be a much-needed restoration of the hospice centre at Bicton Heath in Shrewsbury,. which Heather says falls well short of what is expected today.

"Every ward at Bicton is not in a good state now, and needs to be upgraded, we've been looking at how we can afford that," she says.

Heather says the majority of the funding will come from the hospice's reserves which have been set aside for this purpose, but money will still need to be raised. A major fundraising campaign is expected to be launched in spring. 

"We've got some funds towards it, but we do need the help of our supporters," she says. 

"It seems like an odd thing to be doing in the current financial climate,  but we have to maintain standards, and we have to maintain the provision of beds for people in Shropshire and North Powys.

"The building is 35 years old. The bedrooms are not big enough. If you're caring for patients who need large pieces of equipment, or who need their family to stay with them, the size of the rooms are very limited. If you were to compare them with those what we've got at Telford which is a much newer building, has been refurbished, the dimensions are so much bigger. 

"The plans we have got are to make sure our patients and families get the best experience, but also to meet regulatory standards, environmental standards and health-and-safety standards. It's not a 'nice to do', we have to do it."

But Heather says challenging though such one-off capital projects may be, they aren't the biggest difficulty facing the hospice.

"The big issue's the recurring costs," she says.

"For each year, the recurring costs, the unavoidable costs, go up, and they've been going up huge amounts over the past three years. 

"That's the challenge, it's not the one-off capital projects, because we have strong reserves in place to support that, although we can't afford to do all it all ourselves, we will need to ask the public to help us fill the gap. It's the recurring costs, and we have no control over them.

"The heating costs, like for everyone else, went up hugely. We've been running initiatives like installing LED lighting, as opposed to traditional type of lighting, and we already know that saved money. So there are some initiatives that we can do to be more efficient.

"But when you have got a building as old as this, the material of the building means it will never be as efficient as a newer building. Our patients and our families have to be in a warm environment, as a very basic need, the heating has to stay on all the time."

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