Pendleside renews its ‘Keep Your Hospice Open’ campaign appeal

The campaign was launched by Pendleside ambassador and Burnley FC star Jay Rodriguez in April when the Covid-19 pandemic was first taking a grip.

The hospice announced it expected to lose more than £1m. because of the coronavirus outbreak and dozens of people, young and old, who were in lockdown at home devised all sorts of virtual fundraising events from quizzes to virtual garden parties.

While the initial appeal saw its supporters get behind the campaign, the hospice now fears that as lockdown measures have gently eased the much-needed fundraising is starting to dwindle.

Chief executive Helen McVey said: “Summer is by far our biggest time for fundraising but year on year our fundraising for July and August has been reduced by almost a half.”

Pendleside has held its head above water mainly because of some additional support in the height of the crisis sent out by the government to Hospice UK which oversees the 169 hospices around the country.

Helen said: “Unfortunately, this funding ran out at the end of June and at the moment there hasn’t been a promise of any more. We are still looking at a deficit of around £1m. at the end of the year.

“While the emergency government funding was most welcome and covered the short term we are looking at the long-term sustainability of the hospice.

“To that end we really are dependent on the kind generosity of the people of Burnley and Pendle who we serve to keep us going. So far, the response has been fantastic but we need to push the Keep Your Hospice Open campaign into the final part of the year with a surge of new vigour.”

Pendleside closed its day services department at the outbreak of Covid-19 because outpatients weren’t allowed into the hospice.

The area was converted into a second inpatients’ department increasing the number of beds from 10 to 18, with support of East Lancashire CCG. This was to ease the pressure on NHS beds at the height of the pandemic. At the moment 14 beds are being used because 18 was too much of a stretch on the hospice’s resources.

But if the crisis returns to the levels of a few months it is recognised that Pendleside may have to increase its capacity yet again.

Pendleside initially put 17 members of staff on furlough, but now only have three staff on the scheme.

And while they have had to make five redundancies due to not being able to run their services in the way they did pre the pandemic, they have had to increase staffing on the inpatient wing and Hospice At Home service to support the increased demand on these services.

Helen said: “We are keeping our services relevant to the present situation. We are trying to reach out to the needs of our community.

“We are in the process of revising our day services model and hope that we will be able to operate again very soon. In the meantime, we continue to support the patients and their families who would normally attend day services and the family support service over the phone or virtually, organising for hospice at home to visit if they require any additional support."