Me with Tanya Curry and volunteers from Harlow hospice.
I was delighted to be able to highlight St Clare Hospice during a parliamentary debate on palliative care, and speak about the funding issues being faced by the charity.
I am a long-time supporter of the hospice and its work and see St Clare Hospice as one of the most wonderful community organisations I have ever had the privilege of being involved in.
St Clare receives only 24 per cent of its funding from the local Primary Care Trust while other nearby hospices – Farleigh in Chelmsford and St Francis at Havering-atte-Bower – each receive about 40 per cent of their funding from their PCT.
I welcome that but it’s important that there is much more equality of funding.
Seventy per cent of hospices have only one-year agreements regarding funding contributions.
We need to give them much more longer-term agreements so they are able to plan ahead.
St Clare Hospice has more than 500 volunteers and I was able to see first-hand its great work when I spent time as a volunteer receptionist at the hospice during my Social Action Week last year.
We often talk about the Big Society but the hospice movement was around long before we talked about the Big Society.
Hospices deserve much more recognition for their role as part of the Big Society. They are models of how charitable institutions can raise extra funds, invest in services and train the community without it simply coming from higher taxes.have written to the Health Minister asking for greater support for charitable hospices, like St Clare, especially in their pioneering work on bereavement care.
Video of my speech - http://www.youtube.com/watch?
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