Hospice funding welcome

St Andrew’s Hospice has welcomed news of emergency funding being made available to hospices across Scotland following the adverse impact of the past year on their fundraising.

Officials from the Scottish hospices leadership group this week confirmed that a £16.9 million support package is being made available from Holyrood to be shared between the caring charities across the country.

Joy Farquharson, chief executive at the Airdrie hospice, called it “very welcome news” and said: “Like most other charities, we’ve seen our ability to fundraise decimated by the pandemic – however, our services are required now more than ever.

“This funding will allow us to continue to provide these services to the people of Lanarkshire as we have done for the past 35 years.”

Fundraisers at the Henderson Street hospice last month set up an urgent care appeal asking supporters to help after a year of Covid-19 restrictions limited its usual programme of events and retail “had a terrible effect on our finances”.

They have adapted their usual events to help keep vital funds coming in, including running the annual Santa dash and midnight walks as individual challenges, an advent calendar raffle and a variety of virtual events from quizzes to wine tasting.

Rhona Baillie, chair of the Scottish hospices leadership group, says the “vital sector of healthcare” has “faced unprecedented challenges since the pandemic began, but absolutely risen to the challenge of continuing to provide vital care to people at the end of their lives in truly exceptional circumstances”.

She told how Scotland’s hospices support more than 22,000 people per year and said: “We rely on public generosity and fundraising for a large proportion of our funding, but the external landscape continues to have a major impact on hospices’ ability to raise funds.

“With a significant deficit in fundraising income expected, this emergency funding provides a level of reassurance for forward planning and we will continue to innovate and find new ways of providing worldclass care while doing all we can to reduce running costs.”

Health secretary Jeane Freeman added: “We recognise the vital support provided by hospices at this challenging time and thank all those providing direct care; we will pass on the hospice consequential funding in full to the sector.”