Thames Hospice CEO: A three year plan amid challenging times

A new three-year strategy has been unveiled for Thames Hospice.

For its interim Chief Executive Officer Dr Nick Dando, it’s evident: the plan underlines a passion to provide the best possible care for patients.

But there’s also frustration. More people than ever are needing hospice services, and many much younger people are needing end-of-life care.

Yet Thames Hospice – a charity – relies on its own fundraising to survive. Dr Dando, like many others working in hospice care, says a rethink is needed. And it’s needed now.

“The model has evolved,” he said. “We are now a core provider of complex specialist care - and yet our funding remains mainly through charitable sources.”

“That cannot continue.”

Thames Hospice provided palliative – end-of-life – care for nearly 3,000 patients last year – a figure that’s only expected to grow towards the end of the decade.

A big part of its plan is caring for these people ‘with agility’, that is, offering a patient the right care in the right setting.

More people need treatment for complex health conditions; more younger people are surviving into adulthood with life-limiting illnesses; and more people are living with cancers.

Dr Dando said: “That’s a huge challenge, and it does create huge pressures for the clinicians caring for them.”

“You have to stay up to date on top of advances in clinical medicine whilst also maintaining that human connection between clinical and patient.

“It is a unique part of any model of health care - but particularly important in palliative care.”

Thames Hospice’s plan aims to reach people earlier in treatment, and improve triaging and assessments to ensure the appropriate care is available.

Underpinning everything though, is the finances. Over the next three-years Thames Hospice wants to maintain financial sustainability but there are risks.

It costs £18 million a year to fund Thames Hospice’s services, around two thirds of which it needs to raise independently – £34,000 a day.

A National Insurance hike in last month’s Budget puts more pressure on the hospice at an estimated cost of £300,000.

Around £6 million of funding is provided through contracts with the NHS. One, worth £5 million, is soon coming up for renewal.

This money is vital but - with inflation running high - its value has diminished over time.

“For all intents and purposes, it represents a real time cut to our funding year on year,” Dr Dando said.

It costs £18 million a year to run Thames Hospice - most of which it has to raise itself

Challenges also exist for the NHS. A £22 billion funding boost in the Budget is ‘welcome’ however, finances are still strained across the country.

Dr Dando said: “We’re not naïve about that, we recognise the challenges they’re facing.

“But equally we are looking for an increasing recognition from the local health care system.”

It will be Thames Hospice’s staff that turn the three-year plan from words on a page into reality.

The plan wants to make the hospice an ‘employer of choice’ in healthcare by investing in training to help staff develop, and continuing a positive workplace culture.

A particular challenge for a service providing end-of-life care.

“People often say to me ‘you must work in an emotionally draining, challenging environment’, and that is correct,” Dr Dando said.

“It is true when we’re working with people who are dying everyday.”

Dr Dando said staff, also those working in NHS emergency departments ‘often dealing with very similar things’, should be praised for helping people at some of the most difficult times in their lives.

There are still though, people who do not know the extent to services offered at Thames Hospice.

Its plan also emphasises a continued campaign to raise awareness of its services and challenge perceptions about end-of life care.

Thousands of dedicated fundraisers, often those have seen its services first hand, give their time and effort to help.

There are still many more who could be reached.

Many of whom might not know the hospice is right there for them, should they ever need it.

To find out more about Thames Hospice’s plan visit thameshospice.org.uk