Hospice media campaign left bad taste, says NHS CEO

Roland Sinker said the hospice beds were "very, very poor value for money"

A hospice's "very aggressive" media campaign in response to £800,000 funding being pulled has left a "bad taste in the mouth", an NHS boss has said.

Nine inpatient beds at the Cambridge-based Arthur Rank Hospice are expected to close after the trust that operates Addenbrooke's Hospital removed funding.

Roland Sinker, the CEO of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (CUH), told a public meeting on Tuesday the hospice beds were "very poor value for money" and costed the same as ones in critical care.

Arthur Rank said it was "perplexed by the suggestion that [its campaign] is aggressive or directed at Addenbrooke's".

Arthur Rank has claimed the funding cut would mean "over 200 people a year will no longer have the option of being cared for in the comfort of our hospice and instead will sadly be dying in a busy hospital".

The funding cuts amount to £829,000 a year and will reduce the hospice's inpatient unit bed capacity from 21 to 12.

Mr Sinker added the hospital had plans to create its own dedicated hospice facility on site.

Since 2018 Arthur Rank said the bed occupancy across the contract was 68.4%

Mr Sinker told Tuesday's meeting the hospital had not been "rash" in removing the funding, adding: "It's been quite a deliberate decision."

"We spent over a year working directly with Arthur Rank, who have assets of around £10m, a surplus annually of about £1m and they weren't able to budge at all on the price for those beds and we were only using, I think, about two thirds of the beds that we were contracted for," he said.

Arthur Rank disputed this, stating its annual surplus has been "of the order of £500,000", while stating the Charity Commission required organisations "to hold reasonable levels of reserves".

Mr Sinker went on to state: "We were quite taken aback and surprised by the aggressive nature of the Arthur Rank response in the context of what we believed to be an ongoing dialogue and debate.

"We were wrongfooted by what was a very aggressive media campaign directed against Addenbrooke's.

"We could have chosen to come out equally aggressively, we chose not to… but it's left a very bad taste in the mouth on the Biomedical Campus and with the providers at the heart of health and care here which I think is going to take some time to resolve and there are conversations going on with Arthur Rank just to say 'look, we're pretty good neighbours here, you've not behaved appropriately, we're going to have to work out how we rebuild'."

Sharon Allen said the end of the funding had "truly devastated" the charity

Arthur Rank said: "Our press statement acknowledged the financial difficulties facing CUH and all areas of the care and health sector and we informed colleagues at CUH that we would be launching such a campaign.

"We welcome further dialogue and debate if there is a genuine possibility of a different outcome."

Sharon Allen, the charity's chief executive, said: "The impact of withdrawal of this funding is first and foremost about patients and families, who have told us very passionately that the service we provide, with funding from CUH, has been exceptional, and has made a huge difference in people's final weeks and days.

"We completely recognise that CUH must make savings; while this decision might generate financial savings in the short term, it simply means more patients will be stuck in hospital, using bed capacity."

After the meeting, Mr Sinker told the BBC the hospital's focus was on "continuing to evolve the model through which we provide care to people who need to be supported at the end of their lives".

He said it was creating an "appropriate part of the hospital where we can provide that care".

He added it was an "extraordinarily unusual situation" for a hospital to fund hospice care and encouraged Arthur Rank to contact the local Integrated Care Board (ICB).

A spokesperson for the ICB said the decision to remove funding was one made by CUH, rather than the ICB.

They added the ICB funds 12 hospice beds at the facility and will continue to do so.