Funding Boost to Help Kickstart our 45th Anniversary!

Today, we learnt the news that St Margaret’s Hospice will receive a grant of £204,046 from the Government, as part of its commitment to support hospices throughout England. In total £100m will be shared between 170 hospices, with £25m allocated in the current financial year, and a further £75m distributed in 2025/26.

Rising costs are putting all hospices under pressure, at a time when demand for our services and care is growing. Therefore, this grant is a very welcome boost in St Margaret’s 45^th Birthday year!

As well as being our anniversary, 2025 will see St Margaret’s launch its new five-year strategy: Time to Care – Now & Always. Our new strategy will help us to ensure that St Margaret’s is responding to and delivering the very best care for the evolving needs of our community, as well as innovating how we can resource and fund hospice care for the next 45 years and beyond.

The announcement of funding is therefore very timely, as we enter the first year of this new strategy. The grant will allow us to invest in our infrastructure as a hospice, enabling us to look at upgrades to facilities, or consider how we make our buildings more energy efficient. The funding could also help us underwrite costs linked to digital transformation, ensuring we are being as efficient and cost effective as possible, with our systems and processes, so more time is spent on patient care, helping people to both live well and die well.

This first pot of money will need to be spent before the end of March and cannot be used to pay for revenue items such as salaries or general running costs. Therefore, while we are incredibly grateful for the grant, and will put it to good use, we cannot rest on our laurels and will continue to roll-out our income generation strategy, looking at how we maximise our engagement with the community of Somerset, who are our most passionate supporters and biggest advocates.

You can listen to St Margaret’s Finance Director talk about the grant on this morning’s Breakfast Show on BBC Radio Somerset 

This cash forms a key part of the government’s Plan for Change, improving care in the community where people need it most. It has been administered by the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC). Hospice UK, the national umbrella champion for all hospices, is distributing the grants on behalf of the DHSC.