Funds raised by Keech Hospice Care, of which 75% is generously donated by our community, are largely spent on fulfilling the charity’s aim, which is to ensure our patients and their families receive the very best quality of care in the time they have together and through bereavement.
Recent fundraising allowed us to complete building work on our adult in-patient unit with eight en-suite bedrooms, and develop the new palliative care centre which offers a warm and friendly welcome to people requiring support and advice. Our aim is to maximise and enhance users’ quality of life by offering a range of services so that patients and their families get the very best hospice experience. Changes to the service in 2011 have seen the numbers of people using the centre rise significantly.
The hospice is fully registered with the Care Quality Commission and accredited with CHKS/HAQU (Healthcare Accredited Quality Unit) demonstrating our strong commitment to maintaining the quality of our service and of always seeking improvements to deliver best practice. We’re now seeking accreditation from the Fundraising Standards Board to prove our sound management of donations made to the hospice.
In 2012/13 it will cost over £5m to provide all the patient care and support services across both the adults and children’s services. This excludes the costs involved in raising income through fundraising and running our charity shops and lottery. We’re proud to say that we have very low running costs; for example for every £1 lottery ticket that is sold, Keech successfully puts 65p directly into care for dying people. The national average that hospice lotteries spend on care is 50-60p and the new Health Lottery delivers just 20p in the pound. We continuously monitor expenditure at the charity to make sure we spend money wisely.
This year, our 21st anniversary year, vital funds raised by our community will, once again, form the vast majority of the funds we need. If you would like to support our work, please see how you can get involved or make a donation using the links above. You can also download a short guide to our hospice services and how you can help. Thank you.
