Zoe's Place hospice 'confident' of no service gap

Staff at Zoe's Place and West Derby MP Ian Byrne helped spearhead the £6.4m fundraising drive

Zoe's Place baby hospice said it is "confident" there will be no gap in the service it provides before its new building is ready.

The Liverpool hospice beat the odds and announced it had raised more than £6m in a month to secure its future by a deadline set for Thursday 7 November.

The hospice must vacate its current home in Yew Tree Lane, West Derby, by June 2025 when landlords The Institute of Our Lady Of Mercy move out and sell up.

In October the charity's trustees announced it would be forced to close at the end of the year due to spiralling costs and a lack of time to build a new base.

However, the fundraising campaign, launched with the help of West Derby MP Ian Byrne and local celebrities, sparked a massive flood of donations from the public.

Speaking to BBC Radio Merseyside, Zoe's Place fundraising manager Summa Gill said contractors working with the charity were aware of the urgency.

'Integral' to families

"Given that support we've seen from fundraising I think we're going to be also relying on our contractors to put in the same effort when it comes to building our new hospice," she said.

Ms Gill said the 30-day deadline set for the fundraising effort was to prevent a large gap in service once the hospice leaves its home.

"Everybody understands how integral we are to those families," she said.

"That gap in service we can't have that for too long.

"I remember some of the nurses talking about Covid and some of the families struggled then without the services they were getting, but I'm pretty sure everybody is going to be doing everything they can to avoid any gap in service."

A new charity is being formed to run the Liverpool site, with the existing Zoe's Place trustees responsible for their other hospices in Middlesbrough and Coventry.

The Charity Commission has also said it would "work closely with all parties" on the next steps for Zoe's Place.

Speaking at the time of the announcement last week, Michelle Wright, head of care at the hospice, said: "Words cannot express how I feel.

"The fact that we can continue to support our children and families means everything and is all every member of the team has wanted to do."