BOSSES at North Wales’ largest hospice are “shocked and stunned” after being allocated just 1% of money from a new Assembly budget for palliative care.
Nightingale House Hospice in Wrexham will receive just £20,000 from the Welsh Assembly Government’s £2m allocation of monies for palliative care announced on Monday.
Managers warned they can’t maintain services unless the new funding formula is changed to give them more cash.
Hospice executive director John Savage said: “Everyone at Nightingale House is absolutely stunned by this news.
“This hospice has been consistently held up as an example of best practice in specialist palliative care in Wales, and yet we have received just 1% of the monies on offer. ”
The money was distributed according to a formula worked out by Baroness Ilora Finlay’s Implementation Group on Palliative Care whose report to Assembly Health Minister Edwina Hart was published on Monday.
“We had really high hopes of this report and this distribution following last year’s problems when North Wales received just 20% of the total funds available, and to say we are devastated by this week’s news is a huge understatement.”
Mr Savage has now arranged for a meeting with Edwina Hart to discuss his concerns.
The 12-bed hospice, which has an 80-90% occupancy rate, costs £2.5m a year to run with £434,000 coming from a Local Health Board contract and the remainder from charitable donations.
