The Huddersfield-based Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice could make up to 16 staff redundant as it faces a £1 million funding crisis.

The Brackenhall-based hospice has launched an urgent appeal for help as it looks to cut costs by £750,000, or 12% a year.

The news comes just three weeks after chief executive Gareth Pierce met local MPs at a meeting in Parliament hosted by Huddersfield MP Harpreet Uppal.

The hospice will have to change the way care is delivered and jobs could be lost.

Mr Pierce said: “As a result of rising staff and energy costs, uncertainty over future statutory funding and a tough year for fundraising and in our shops, we face a real term gap in our finances of £1 million.

“We need to take action now to protect our future and ensure we can continue to be here for the local families who need us.

“Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice is therefore entering into a period of consultation to permanently reduce our annual running costs by 12% (around £750,000 a year) and launching an urgent appeal for help from our local community.

 

 

“To reduce our costs, we’ll be making changes to our operating model and service offer. Unfortunately, this means that we anticipate that up to 16 staff may be made redundant. This has been a very difficult decision, and one that has not been taken lightly.

“As always, the children and families we care for are at the heart of everything we do and we will do whatever we can to minimise the impact on them.

“And we will continue to fight and campaign for increased and recurrent statutory funding so that we can build a sustainable future for our children’s hospice and the vital services we provide to the local community.

“But right now, we face some impossible choices – and if we don’t act now, we face an even bleaker future.

“That’s why we’re making this urgent appeal to the public – please make a donation today. Your generosity will help children and families going through the darkest of times to continue to receive the high quality, expert care they need and deserve, that they simply can’t get anywhere else.”

Jeremy Cross, chair of trustees at Forget Me Not, said: “It is with deep regret that we now face the prospect of making highly qualified and caring professionals redundant and we’re doing everything we can to support everyone who’s affected by this.

“By doing all that we can to make up the shortfall in our finances now, we’re making sure we can be here for families, today, tomorrow and in the years to come.

“The truth is that even though we provide essential support to children and families across West Yorkshire, support they can’t get anywhere else, we’re not underwritten by the government or the NHS. Simply put, if we run out of funds, our children’s hospice won’t be here anymore.”

 

 

Leading UK-wide children’s palliative care charity Together for Short Lives is deeply worried by the challenges facing Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice. It believes they are yet another indicator of the unfair and unsustainable way in which the government is funding these crucial services.

In 2023/24, children’s hospices in England received, on average, over a third (31%) less funding from local NHS bodies when compared to 2021/22.

Over the same period, their charitable expenditure has increased by 15%, due in part to the spiralling cost of recruiting and retaining staff with the specialist skills and experience needed to care for seriously ill children.

Nick Carroll, CEO of Together for Short Lives, said: “This is awful news for staff and volunteers at Forget Me Not, as well as the children and families who rely on the lifeline care and support they provide. My thoughts are with them all.

“Even before the recent Budget, children’s hospices across England were facing a perfect storm. The rise in employer National Insurance contributions will pile even greater pressure on to children’s hospices. This will put services at risk, leaving more families feeling isolated and overwhelmed, and loading even more demand on to already overstretched NHS services.

“With an announcement on the future of the £25 million NHS England Children’s Hospice Grant expected soon, we urge the government to commit to delivering it as a centrally-distributed, ringfenced grant and increase it to reflect inflation.

“Ministers must also reimburse children’s hospices for the increase in National Insurance in full.”

 

 

Toby Porter, CEO of Hospice UK, said: “It is so sad and utterly damning that a children’s hospice providing such critical services to children and their families has been put in this position.

“I am thinking today of the staff and volunteers at Forget Me Not and, of course, of the families they so brilliantly support.

“We have been warning for months of the financial fragility of the hospice sector. We need more than warm words. We need immediate and significant financial investment into palliative care services for children.

“We need the Children’s Hospice Grant confirmed and efficiently distributed as a matter of urgency. We need local health boards to properly commission and fund these services. And we need central government to give them the resources and support to do so.

“The consequences of further cuts of this nature are just so sad for us as a society. Let’s not let that happen.”

Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice is a charity providing free expert clinical care and support to children with life-shortening conditions and their families and families living with the loss of a child. Rated ‘outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission, it supports families across West Yorkshire at its purpose-built hospice in Huddersfield and in families’ own homes.

It was the local community who campaigned and fundraised for the children’s hospice to be built. 13 years later, the charity relies on the community to help raise around 90% of the income it needs each year.

Mr Pierce added: “We’re incredibly grateful and proud of the support we receive from our local community – individuals, groups, businesses and organisations – without whom we simply wouldn’t be here.

“We’re hoping they will once again rise to the challenge and support us in whatever way they can.”

Donations to the charity’s urgent appeal can be made by visiting www.forgetmenotchild.co.uk/donate. Other ways to help and more details on the financial crisis that Forget Me Not faces can be found at www.forgetmenotchild.co.uk.