Havens Hospices' yearly energy bills have risen by £34,000 pounds
It's nearly double their previous costs
Essex based charity Havens Hospices say their yearly energy bills have increased by over £34,000.
The charity, which provides palliative nursing and supportive care to adults and children living with complex or incurable conditions say the energy bills across their two hospices, one for children and one for adults, previously totalled around £40,500 yearly but have skyrocketed to £75,000.
Amy Dearing is a spokesperson for the charity. She says the increase will put pressure on their workers: "As a charity, we rely heavily on kind donations from the public. We are funded by the community that we serve, so these energy price rises mean that we will need to raise even more money.
"Our fundraisers will have to work even harder than they already do, to find the additional £34,000 a year that we're going to need to pay these bills."
Given the conditions of the patients the charity cares for, Amy notes they have no option but to pay the high costs: "It's really important that our hospices are warm and comfortable and well lit for our patients, so it's not an option for us to turn the lights off or turn the heating off.
"We have to make sure that those hospices are as welcoming as possible for our patients, so there's no getting around the fact that we need to pay these bills to make sure that can happen."
They've already been looking into ways to make the hospices more energy efficient: "The charity has a dedicated group of colleagues that come together regularly to discuss ways that we can make energy savings ourselves.
"We've already made lots of progress - we've changed all of our lighting to LED lights and we ensure that vital equipment like our boilers and our underfloor heating systems are working as efficiently as possible, but there will always be a need to use energy at the hospices to make sure they're as warm and well lit for the patients and their families as possible."
Finally, as energy regulator Ofgem considers reviewing the energy price cap every three months instead of six, Amy noted a cap to the charity's energy costs would also be welcome: "There will be no price cap on commercial electric and gas customers, so the price cap won't benefit organisations like Havens Hospices.
"If there was a price cap on commercial costs, it could benefit a charity like ours because we could plan more effectively for those price rises and also benefit when prices do fall, meaning we could direct more of the money that we're raising towards our free care."
For more information on Havens Hospices click here.