Following a visit to the St Giles Hospice on Friday (1st November) and a
meeting with Dr Robert Horton (the Chairman) and Peter Holliday (Hospice
Director), Michael Fabricant is calling on the government to provide
additional funding to support the growth of charity hospices – and to
improve the time it takes for that funding to be allocated. The call comes
following the MP’s latest visit to Lichfield-based St Giles Hospice, which
provides care for people from the city and across the region living with
cancer and other serious illness.

Government funding currently only accounts for around one third of the
£3.75m pounds it costs to run St Giles Hospice each year. While this amount
is set to increase slightly following last week’s announcement of an extra
£10m for hospices across the UK, St Giles continues to rely heavily on the
generosity of local people. In addition, the current trial of St Giles’
new ‘Hospice at Home’ service – which provides specialist care allowing
patients to die in familiar surroundings at home rather than in hospital –
is being funded entirely by the hospice. State funding for new initiatives
of this kind usually only follows after charities have invested in
developing the service. Many in the hospice movement feel that the
combination of limited levels of government funding, and the time lag in
securing support for new services, is discouraging hospices from expanding
the care they provide.

Michael Fabricant says: “Once again, St Giles Hospice is leading the way
with a visionary new service. But rather than that vision being rewarded by
the government, the hospice is having to meet the entire cost from its own
resources. I’ll be asking the Health Secretary Alan Milburn to review both
the level of support the state provides for hospices, and the way in which
new projects are supported, to encourage hospices like St Giles to continue
to develop the very important work they do.

“The staff and volunteers at St Giles continue to do a wonderful job, and it
was tremendous to see the recent enhancements to the hospice for the benefit
of local patients.”

St Giles Hospice Director Peter Holliday adds: “While we welcome the recent
announcement of £10m of extra government funding for hospices like St Giles,
if this is divided equally between hospices across the UK then it will only
provide roughly what it costs to run St Giles for one week.

“Hospice at Home is just one of the many exciting ways in which we would
look to extend our services if funding were available. But even running this
service across our catchment area would cost around a quarter of a million
pounds, and it’s difficult to get any confirmation of government funding
until we have actually committed to spending that.”

The Photographs show Michael looking at a new bath system and having
his blood oxygen level and pulse rate read on a finger probe. (Both gave
normal readings!) Michael is with Peter Holliday and Staff Nurse Karen
Stokes.