'Rotherham’s families need to know that when they need us, we will be there'

Hospices need money not words - that is the stark message to the Chancellor and other Rotherham MPs in a hard-hitting letter.

Rotherham Hospice chief executive Mat Cottle-Shaw has laid it on the line to Chancellor John Healey that urgent action is needed in terms of funding and that voluntary donations cannot pay for everything.

And he has urged all Rotherham MPs - Sarah Champion, Jake Richards and Mr Healey - to push for change.

The Outstanding-rated hospice, based on Broom Road, forecasts a £525,000 deficit even after fundraising as it estimates that 25,000 local people could need palliative and end-of-life care over the next decade.

The hospice’s ten-year estimates include approximately 6,000 people in the Rotherham communities represented by John Healey, 9,000 in Sarah Champion’s Rotherham constituency and 10,000 in Jake Richards’s Rother Valley constituency.

The estimates are of future palliative and end-of-life care need across different settings, not forecasts that every person will require admission to the hospice.

Rotherham Hospice is asking for three actions:

• Backing for Hospice UK’s immediate recurring funding request;
• A properly funded local plan reflecting care costs and growing need;
• Investment linked to clear outcomes for people, families and the NHS.

Mr Cottle-Shaw has invited the MPs to visit the hospice and meet with local NHS partners to agree a plan for sustaining and expanding care.

In an open letter, Mr Cottle-Shaw calls for urgent action and is asking the borough’s MPs to help secure a sustainable funding plan before increasing need places further pressure on families and NHS services.

Writing in the letter, he said: “Rotherham Hospice needed breathing space.

“We should be preparing to reach more people, earlier in their illness, with care at home and inpatient support when needed.

“Instead, we are having to consider contraction.”

The charity, rated Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission, supported 2,121 people and their families and delivered 11,266 Hospice at Home visits in 2024/25.

Despite already having a multi-year agreement with NHS South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, the hospice says funding falls more than £2 million short of the cost of the services it is expected to deliver.

That care-funding gap is separate from its forecast £525,000 overall deficit, which remains after expected charitable and other income.

The letter challenges the lack of new dedicated recurring funding for adult hospices in the recent Budget, against continuing increases in employment costs and pressure to keep clinical salaries competitive with the NHS.

In his letter, Mr Cottle-Shaw says: “Our colleagues deserve fair pay. But successive minimum wage increases, higher employer National Insurance costs and the pressure to keep pace with NHS pay awards must be recognised in the funding of the care they deliver.

“Hospices recruit from the same workforce as the NHS. We cannot indefinitely absorb those pressures through more fundraising.”

“Last year’s capital funding does not close this year’s recurring funding gap.”

The letter follows correspondence in September about the closure of the hospice’s Wath charity shop and Swinton Café.

Rising employment costs, insufficient footfall and unsustainable margins meant the sites were no longer viable.

In his response at the time, Mr Healey said he would keep the hospice’s concerns “closely in mind” and highlighted capital funding.

Mr Cottle-Shaw welcomed that investment but draws a distinction between improvements to facilities and the money needed to deliver care.

He said: “Those grants were restricted to capital improvements, such as buildings and equipment. They could not pay ordinary nursing salaries or day-to-day care costs.

“Last year’s capital funding does not close this year’s recurring funding gap.”

Rotherham Hospice is backing Hospice UK’s Fair Funding for Hospices campaign, including its request for £112.5 million in additional recurring annual funding for England, alongside fair contracts, support for staff pay and national accountability for access to care.

The letter contrasts that request with the Budget’s additional £190 million for NHS winter and other in-year pressures, arguing that hospice and community care should be central to reducing avoidable hospital demand.

Mr Cottle-Shaw writes: “Give us the funding to provide more care, agree clear expectations around avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions, supporting earlier discharge and reducing pressure on GPs, and measure what we deliver.

“We are ready to demonstrate the difference that investment could make.”

He adds: “We should be funding the care that helps people avoid a hospital admission, as well as paying for the bed once they get there.

“Allowing hospice services to contract while finding more money to manage pressure elsewhere in the NHS makes little sense—for families or for the public purse.”

The letter challenges the different expectations placed on funding care at the beginning and end of life.

Mr Cottle-Shaw writes: “The NHS funds the core nurses and midwives in its hospital maternity services.

“Why must hospices rely on charity appeals and collection buckets to pay the specialist nurses caring for people at the other end of life?”

Responding to Sarah Champion’s Budget-day Facebook statement that the government is “on your side”, Mr Cottle-Shaw writes: “The measures she highlighted will matter to many households, but those 9,000 people and their families must be included in that promise.

“It is difficult to reconcile being ‘on your side’ with leaving hospices struggling to fund the care those same people may depend on.”

Mr Cottle-Shaw’s letter concludes: “These are the people you [Mr Healey], Sarah and Jake represent.

“Their need for care is foreseeable. We should be preparing to meet it.

“Rotherham’s families need to know that when they need us, we will be there.

“For some, another Budget will come too late.”