A £13m hospice charity is proposing to cut around 15% of its workforce in a bid to reduce its budget deficit, which stands at £1.5m a year.
Last week, St Giles Hospice announced that it was consulting with its workforce to make approximately 40 redundancies across the organisation as it faces “unsustainable rising costs”.
The charity said staffing costs and associated salaries form the majority of its expenditure (80%) and that ensuring it has the right workforce to deliver services in a cost-efficient way is crucial.
Toby Porter, chief executive of Hospice UK, said that St Giles is not the first hospice to propose or make redundancies, and warned that more could follow suit without additional funding for the sector.
‘We need to adapt to an evolving landscape’
The charity said in its statement: “The landscape in which hospices operate is evolving and St Giles needs to adapt to keep up with changes and challenges currently being faced in palliative and end-of-life care, whilst ensuring good financial management.
“To achieve this, a review of the way in which we deliver our services, and the workforce required, has been critical.
“Staffing costs form the majority of what we spend and ensuring we have the right workforce to deliver our services, in a cost-efficient way, is essential.
“We’re therefore proposing to cut approximately 40 full-time roles – around 15% of our overall workforce.”
Accounts for the year ending 31 March 2023 show that St Giles Hospice group’s total income fell from £13.7m to £12.9m year-on-year while its total expenditure rose from £12.2m to £13.0m.
During that year, the group spent £7.60m on wages and salaries, up from £7.01m the year before. According to the Charity Commission website, St Giles Hospice had 225 employees that year.
St Giles Hospice said it is facing several challenges including a real-terms reduction in NHS income, large increases in utility costs and reduced voluntary income.
As a proportion of the charity’s total expenditure on services, it said NHS funding fell from 73.5% in 2021-22 to 31.5% in 2022-23 due to the additional Covid-19 support grants received from NHS England in the previous year.
‘We cannot continue to run a deficit and run out of money’
Robin Vickers, chair of the hospice, said: “The prospect of having to make highly skilled, end-of-life healthcare professionals redundant, as well as their colleagues who run the charity, is incredibly difficult and isn’t a decision we’re taking lightly.
“We’re doing everything we can to support all our hospice colleagues through this difficult time.”
Vickers added that by making redundancies now, St Giles Hospice “is ensuring it can return to a sustainable budget as soon as possible”.
“As a charity, we aren’t underwritten by the government or the NHS, we cannot continue to run a deficit and simply run out of money; if we did, the hospice would cease to exist.
“St Giles has been supporting our local community for over 40 years and our intention is to be here to support those who need us most in another 40 years.
“The redundancy process we are going through is part of a wider transformation programme that puts the hospice on the right track to achieve this goal and continue to provide outstanding care in the years to come.”
Interim CEO Elinor Eustace said: “Whilst St Giles will continue to campaign for fair funding for hospices locally and nationally, in the absence of any additional support, we aren’t able to delay these difficult decisions any longer.
“The hospice has also looked to cut non-pay costs and invested in income generation opportunities but, although investing in fundraising and retail operations will help to give the hospice a long-term future, the return will not be at the rate of its rising costs.
“We recognise that this is a period of uncertainty for our workforce and the wellbeing of our staff, volunteers, patients, and families is paramount. Whilst this decision has been very difficult to make, the long-term future of St Giles is at its heart.”
Hospice UK: ‘St Giles isn’t the first and won’t be the last’
Toby Porter, CEO of Hospice UK, said: “St Giles isn’t the first, and sadly will likely not be the last. This news follows other redundancies and service reductions across the UK’s hospice sector.
“Let’s be clear: redundancies of health and social care staff are simply not acceptable given the huge pressures in our NHS and beyond.
“Hospices like St Giles are a critical part of our health and social care system. Service reductions only mean that more patients are channelled into overstretched NHS services. It’s counterproductive for St Giles to be forced into this position.
“As a hospice sector, we want to help the NHS. We want to do more. But as is clear from St Giles and elsewhere, that can only happen if hospices are given fair funding for the services they provide on behalf of the state.
“Let’s hope that more redundancies will alert the government to the need to act, quickly.”
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