MP Bob Seely has thrown his support behind the Island’s Mountbatten hospice to secure a better funding deal from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board (ICB) – the body responsible for giving NHS money to the hospice.
“Mountbatten does amazing and unique work. It is one of the most remarkable organisations on the Island,” Mr Seely said. “I don’t think I’ve come across a single person on the Isle of Wight who doesn’t know of someone who has received support from Mountbatten. We all immensely appreciate the work that Mountbatten does.”
Mr Seely said that he was concerned that a full funding allocation was not being passed onto Mountbatten from the NHS Board, and was asking for answers from the ICB as to why this was the case.
Mr Seely said: “It is vital that the ICB delivers an uplift in line with inflation on the c.£3.5m it already provides to Mountbatten. I know that Mountbatten wants to do all it can to avoid passing these costs onto Islanders who already do so much to support the hospice through their generous donations.”
Mr Seely has joined forces with Paul Holmes, Conservative MP for Eastleigh, to request a funding uplift from the ICB in line with inflation for both of Mountbatten’s hospices – the one on the Island and the one in Hampshire.
Mountbatten currently receives approximately one-third of its income through the ICB, however, there is no means in place for an automatic annual uplift to cover rising costs in line with inflation - leaving the hospice with a shortfall to address each year.
Mountbatten’s CEO Nigel Hartley has recently warned that, without the uplift, in real terms income for Mountbatten will be down by approximately £800k for 2024/25.
Mountbatten is not the only hospice in this situation. A report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hospice and End of Life Care released last month highlighted that there have been drastic real terms cuts in the funding hospices receive from ICBs - as this has not kept pace with inflation. The report concludes by saying ‘ICBs must commit to delivering their statutory requirement… paying the full cost of commissioned clinical services and offering hospices the same annual increases as NHS services’.
In a joint letter to the ICB the two MPs said: “We ask that a fair and proper uplift of eight per cent is added to the Mountbatten Hospices’ contracted amount for 2024/25 in order that they can continue to deliver vital, much needed and valued services to the continually growing number of people who need them.
“Our understanding is that money is passed to ICBs from the government to cover such uplifts on these contracts, so this should not be an issue.”
Mr Hartley said: “We are very uncomfortable with how things stand at the moment, we do not want to lose our hospice or any element of the work we do so we need this sorted out.
“We are very fortunate that our local communities really get behind us with our fundraising efforts and we are so very thankful for that. Thank you to everyone who has sent messages of support and thank you to Bob and Paul for their support as well.
“I hope we can sort this out quickly so that we can continue to support Islanders with all the support and care they need at the end of their lives.”
