A local hospice continues to look for a site for a new shop in Congleton, its annual report has said.
East Cheshire Hospice said its retail income continued to flourish, supported in part by a shift towards preloved and upcycled shopping. The hospice now has two boutique-style shops that seek to capitalise on this trend.
Its report for the year to March said: “We continue to look for suitable premises to develop new retail space, particularly in Congleton and Knutsford.
“It is proving challenging to find locations that meet all of our requirements, but we are confident that expanding our retail offering will be worthwhile.”
The report showed that the hospice recorded a surplus on net operating activity of £1.2 million, rising to £1.6 million when investments were taken into account, up from £1.3 million the year before.
The report said the hospice had benefited from “another amazing year” of support from the local community and commissioners. Income was only marginally lower than 2022/23, a “fantastic result” given that 2022/23 was the hospice’s best funded year ever.
Income was bolstered by another donation from Michael Oliver, chairman of Knutsford-based Oliver Valves and a patron of the hospice, with £700,000 donated in 2023/24, following on from £800,000 donated in 2022/23. These donations to fund the Knutsford Home First project, delivering specialised palliative care in collaboration with the NHS, ensuring the services funded and will remain viable for several years.
The report added: “It is now clear that the methods by which we generate funds have been permanently impacted by the covid-19 pandemic, and our team has altered accordingly. Despite these changes, we experienced a busy and productive year, culminating in an annual fundraising income of £2.358 million, surpassing the original budget of £2.152 million.”
Fundraising this year featured a blend of hospice-led and community events, including the Starlight Walk, Pie and Pint, and Light Up A Life, as well as coffee mornings, open gardens, plant sales, cake sales, quiz nights, fetes, golf days, festivals, balls and more.
The Christmas tree collection continues to be the most significant fundraising event of the year, generating £152,000 in the year thanks to a dedicated team of volunteers who collected more than 7,000 trees in one weekend.
The hospice has secured a £250,000 grant over the next five years from the National Lottery to support dementia services.
Astrazeneca donated £41,374 to the hospice in 2023.
The report said the plight of the NHS had affected services. Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board’s financial pressures had impacted on the hospice grant funding, which supports the running of its inpatient unit. While the board increased its grant by £20,000 to £662,000, this was offset by a fall in grant income from the Derbyshire care board, which cut its funding by £21,000, a fall of 52%.
Said the report: “We continued to provide additional capacity to the system to support winter bed pressures at Macclesfield District General Hospital.
“We have also completed a second year under the palliative care in partnership contract, under agreement with Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which provides at home end of life care, enabling us to provide care 24/7 in more patients’ own homes.”
The hospice’s total costs increased by £523,000 (8%) in the year – of which £500,000 related to salaries – to just under £7 million.
Staffing is the single largest cost in the hospice (74%) “as the excellent care our patients and their families receive is reliant on our ability to recruit and retain experienced and highly sought-after care staff”.
The increase in salary costs was driven both by the 5% NHS Agenda for Change pay deal announced in May 2023, which the hospice implemented, and the additional staffing needed to support clinical service development.
The hospice held total reserves of £17.4 million, an increase of £1.6 million over the previous year; £7 million of this is restricted, an increase of £1.1 million driven mainly by the £700,000 donation from Mr Oliver, which is restricted to providing Hospice at Home services in the Knutsford area under the banner Knutsford Home First.
The hospice paid out salaries of £4.4 million, rising to £5 million after pension and other costs.
It employs 81 clinical and patient support staff, 20 support staff, and 19 income generation staff, a total of 162.
