Funding crisis:Forty jobs under threat at hospice with £1.5m budget black hole
Around forty jobs including nursing and administration roles are set to be axed at a hospice in a bid to plug a £1.5 million finance black hole.
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Chiefs at St Giles Hospice in Lichfield said it was a "difficult" situation and the redundancy proposals were being being made as it grapples with the annual budget deficit.
The charity provides vital end of life care across the region is blaming "unprecedented financial pressures due to rising costs and hospice funding challenges" for the action.
Under the changes approximately 40 full-time roles or 15 per cent of the workforce may be being cut.
The charity's chairman Robin Vickers said: “The prospect of having to make highly skilled, end of life healthcare professionals redundant, as well as their colleagues who run the charity, is incredibly difficult and is not a decision we are taking lightly.
"We are doing everything we can to support all our hospice colleagues through this difficult time.
"By making redundancies now, the hospice is ensuring it can return to a sustainable budget as soon as possible. As a charity, we are not underwritten by the government or the NHS, we cannot continue to run a deficit and simply run out of money; if we did, the hospice would cease to exist.
“St Giles has been working with Hospice UK and other hospices nationally to seek support to address the financial challenges across the sector.
"We have supported national campaigning and the debate on hospice funding in parliament; however, the government response was that funding decisions were a matter for local NHS commissioners (integrated care boards), and no additional money would be provided.
