Yorkshire children's hospice faced with cutting respite breaks as public urged to support appeal

A children's hospice leader has urged the community to rally round as it faces 2025 with having to make significant cuts to its services.
Gareth Pierce, CEO of Forget Me Not hospiceGareth Pierce, CEO of Forget Me Not hospice
Gareth Pierce, CEO of Forget Me Not hospice

Forget Me Not hospice in Huddersfield supports children with life limiting conditions and their families.

But a combination of pressures including the cost of living crisis and national insurance increase means the hospice is faced with making 12 per cent cuts, meaning staff redundancies are on the horizon.

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Up to 16 staff could lose their jobs in what have been described by CEO Gareth Pierce as “impossible choices.”

An urgent appeal has also been launched to raise £1m to support services at the hospice, which has served families in West Yorkshire since being formed in 1998.

Services the hospice offers include respite care for families, end-of-life care and sibling support groups.

Almost £150,000 has been raised from the appeal since its launch.

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Mr Pierce said: “We’ve been blown away by the support we've received. And I guess that's not unexpected, because we know that our local community are absolute pillars of support for the charity. They have been since, since day one of the charity starting.

“But no matter what happens with the appeal, we will still have to make savings. We’ve got to reduce costs and generate income to protect our future.

“Some of those cost savings will be in back office functions, but some are within our frontline care team area. That does have an impact on our service users.

“We’re trying to minimise impact on our children and families and we don’t want to complete remove a service. But the difference people will see is we will have to change the way we offer our short breaks to families.”

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Mr Pierce has called on the Government to further its support for children’s hospices after health secretary Wes Streeting announced a £100m funding boost in December.

Mr Streeting said the funding would “ensure they will be able to continue to deliver the compassionate care everyone deserves as they come to the end of their life in the best possible environment.”

But with hospices not exempt from national insurance employer contribution increases, the sector will need more to continue, Mr Pierce said.

He said: “It’s good that the Government recognised we need that certainty for next year, but what it doesn’t give us is that long-term sustainable model we need for the future.

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“The positive to take is the Government has heard the challenges hospices are facing. My hope is that it’s the start of a long journey.

“We’re still going to have to fundraise and depend on our community but we’d expect our statutory funding to increase so we’re not as hand to mouth as we are now.”

Describing the hospice’s place in the West Yorkshire community, Mr Pierce said: “The feedback we get from families is that we are there in their darkest hour. When they turn to us, they’re about to go through the worst thing in their lives. When they fall, we’re there to catch them.”

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