End of life care has become a 'postcode lottery' in Derbyshire
The Chesterfield charity needs to fundraise around 11 million pounds this year to keep its services running
We're told the 'postcode lottery' around end-of-life hospice care in Derbyshire 'can't go on'.
Staff at Ashgate Hospice in Chesterfield say they're having to fundraise 11 million pounds in across 2025 to keep services running.
Barbara-Anne Walker is the Chief Exec of the charity:
"I live in South Derbyshire; if I need specialist, end of life care - it's all paid for by the NHS.
"If you live in Chesterfield and need specialist end-of-life care, then you or somebody who loves you has to fundraise for two thirds of the cost of that care.
"That's not fair - people in Chesterfield pay the same tax as I do.
"We only have 15 out of 21 beds on our in-patient unit open.
"We know we could fill the other 6 beds, but we don't have money to open them.
"There are 35 beds in the south of Derbyshire for end-of-life care, whereas there's only enough funding to open 15 in the north.
"We only get 31% of our overall funding from the NHS.
"As a result, we have to ask the community of North Derbyshire to help us fundraise £11 million this year just to keep our services running, and it's been hard.
"Your ability to access specialist end of life care when you need it shouldn't depend on how many pairs of shoes or how many skirts we can sell in one of our shops.
"Our retail staff & volunteers are fabulous; they really work so hard to raise the money the same way as our fundraising team do.
"However, we shouldn't be relying on this as a way of keeping our services running."
Last year, the government promised to invest an extra 100 million pounds into hospices across the country in 2025.