To mark Hospice Care Week, St Peter & James Hospice announces hopes for future funding

Hospice Care Week takes place from 6 – 12 October 2025, and provides an opportunity to us all to champion hospice care nationwide. A time to applaud the incredible work that is being done to make sure everyone can benefit from the very best end of life care, and this year’s theme is: hospice care is more than you think

St Peter & St James Hospice marks 50 years of providing care to our community in Sussex this year, and were honoured to share their golden garden party celebrations with Alison Bennett, MP for Mid Sussex. The event gave the team the opportunity to thank all the people who have supported the hospice and donated over the last 50 years. Amanda Fadero, CEO and Robin Knight, Vice-Chair of the Trustees at the hospice, spoke in detail with Alison on the day about the struggles hospices are facing , and were delighted to learn that Alison went on to propose a new policy, to protect hospices, at the recent Liberal Democrats Conference in Bournemouth.

Alison Bennett, MP for Mid Sussex, comments: “For too long, the vital role played by hospices in our health and care system has been overlooked. These organisations provide compassionate, dignified care for people at the end of life, support their families, and give vital relief to our overstretched NHS. Yet years of neglect and underfunding have left them in crisis.

On average, just 30% of hospice funding comes from the NHS, meaning that they rely heavily on charitable donations. There is wide regional variation in the money that they do receive from the NHS, with St Peter and St James receiving just 13% of their income from the state in the last financial year.

This is why I proposed a new policy motion at Lib Dem conference to protect hospices. This called for hospices to be exempt from increases in Employer National Insurance Contributions and for the establishment of a commission to develop a plan to improve their financial stability. It also looked to put an end to the unfair postcode lottery of palliative care by allocating funding based on demand. I was pleased that this motion was passed by Lib Dem members at conference.

Supporting people to live and die well is at the heart of St Peter and St James’s work, and they must be given the support and resources to carry out this mission.”’

Amanda Fadero, CEO of the hospice adds: “As we mark Hospice Care Week, we look forward to celebrating all the different aspects of hospice care that truly are ‘more than you think’. Many think of our incredible care, housekeeping and catering teams on our Inpatient Unit. However, as critically, hospice care is our Hospice Community Nursing Team visiting patients and their loved ones at home and our vibrant Living Well Centre, focused on patients and their carers wellbeing through our provision of social, practical, holistic and counselling support.

In a challenging fundraising landscape, we have also spent time reviewing our funding model. To this end, we have also recently secured being a provider of four Continuing Health Care (CHC) beds in order to obtain additional NHS funding. Opening these new beds will help us care for more people in our community who need our help, but it will also financially help the hospice which needs £6.9m to operate each year. As a result of opening these beds, we will receive around £250,000 of funding from the NHS to carry out this care. We applaud Alison’s proposed new policy, and hope this gathers cross-party support, and we actively invite people to write to their MP via Hospice UK’s campaign at www.action.hospiceuk.org/hospice-care-much-more-than-you-think. In the meantime, our CHC bed provision is a small step towards filling the financial gap we face, and to ensuring St Peter & St James Hospice continues to thrive as a safe, effective, modern and sustainable hospice.” 

To find out more about the services offered by St Peter & St James Hospice, or to donate to the 50 anniversary campaign, please visit www.stpjhospice.org.