Rotherham Hospice sets out change plans to protect patient care amid national hospice funding pressures

Rotherham Hospice has today set out proposals for changes across the charity, aimed at ensuring quality patient care remains sustainable and responsive amid rising demand, increasingly complex needs and financial pressures affecting hospices across England.

The hospice says the proposals are about focusing more of its resources where they matter most – on patients, families and frontline care – and ensuring it can continue to meet the needs of local people now and in the future.

The announcement comes as the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts publishes its report on the financial sustainability of adult hospices in England, which warns of a growing funding crisis across the sector and calls for urgent reform. Rotherham Hospice submitted written evidence to the inquiry, and the report highlights the increasing financial strain faced by hospices nationally.

Rotherham Hospice says the national findings reflect the same pressures it is experiencing locally, including growing demand for hospice care, rising costs and funding arrangements that do not fully reflect the cost of delivering high-quality services. The hospice receives commissioned income from the NHS to fund its clinical services, but that funding falls around £3 million short of what those services actually cost to run each year. In its written evidence to Parliament, the hospice also reported a projected annual deficit of £1.1 million – the gap between all of its income and all of its costs as a charity. Together, these figures reflect the scale of the challenge facing Rotherham Hospice and the wider sector.

Despite these pressures, the hospice continues to deliver outstanding care. Recent feedback shows very high levels of patient and family satisfaction – 98.6% of patients and families rated their care as excellent or very good – and the hospice was most recently rated Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission. It says maintaining that standard of compassionate, high-quality care remains central to every decision it takes.

The proposed reorganisation focuses on reducing management and leadership costs where possible, and creating greater capacity for patient-facing and service-delivery roles. The hospice says this will help it become more responsive, easier to navigate and better able to grow services over time in line with need.

The hospice has stressed that the proposals are designed to protect services for the long term. It says it is committed to supporting its workforce through the process and will seek, wherever possible, to limit the potential for redundancy, while being honest that difficult decisions may sometimes be necessary to safeguard patient care.

Mat Cottle-Shaw, Chief Executive of Rotherham Hospice, said:

“Our responsibility is to make sure that people in Rotherham continue to receive compassionate, high-quality hospice care when they need it most – not just today, but for years to come.  “We are seeing growing demand, increasing complexity and ongoing pressure on how hospice care is funded. The national report published today underlines that this is not a challenge faced by one hospice alone, but by the sector as a whole.  “These proposals are about being proactive now – simplifying where we need to, reducing costs where possible, and shifting more of our capacity towards patient-facing care.  “This is about protecting hospice care, strengthening it, and building a more sustainable model that allows us to reach more people, respond earlier and continue delivering the high-quality care our community rightly expects.”

The hospice says patient dignity, compassion and quality of care will remain at the heart of all decisions, and that any formal changes affecting roles will be subject to proper consultation processes.