Dying patients could be turned away over Budget tax hike, warns hospice boss
ITV News Anglia's Rob Setchell reports on the human cost of the new measures
Dying patients could be turned away from hospices because of "painful" tax increases imposed in the Budget, a boss has warned.
St Helena Hospice in Colchester costs £11.5m a year to run and supports more than 4,200 people across north east Essex, but says it is now facing a further £385,000 in costs.
Due to increasing demand and costs the charity had already been averaging a deficit of £1m, and the government's changes to employers' National Insurance Contributions, combined with an increased national living wage, will take the total to nearly £1.4m.
Chief executive Mark Jarman-Howe said: "Effectively, we have to find another £1,000 every single day either by increased fundraising or reducing services.
"What that means for us potentially is 44 people and their families needing support, as an admission to our hospice inpatient unit, being turned away.
"We will have to make some difficult decisions and the worst case would be that every eight days we're turning away a family in need.
"The changes announced in the Budget last week are really painful. They're sad. They're frustrating and they don't actually make any sense in terms of taking the pressure off," he added.
"We only get 20% of our funding from the NHS and yet 100% of the benefit is felt by the NHS.
"Next year we were on course to get to break even but this £385,000 from last week's budget and this tax on our hospice is going to knock us back to square one.
"It makes no sense to penalise hospices."
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations says increases to employers' National Insurance Contributions could cost the charity sector £1.4bn a year.
The Sanctus Homeless Charity in Chelmsford employs 13 people, and will need to find another £4,000 a year.
Chief executive Emma Hughes told ITV News Anglia: "To have a Labour government who historically have been supportive of charities and the types of people we're supporting every day, there is a level of betrayal and massive concern for what the future might hold for us and other small charities locally and nationally."
However the Chancellor Rachel Reeves insisted her budget was no betrayal.
"The National Insurance changes we made in the budget last week were essential to get our public finances back on a firm footing but as part of the budget we also set aside £22.6bn this year and next for the NHS," she told ITV News on Thursday.
"The health department will be making settlements including with hospices to ensure they've got the money they need to run the services that are so essential in all of our communities."
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