Hospice cut will hit quality of life, says motion

Since 2018, Arthur Rank said the bed occupancy across the contract was about 70%

A hospital trust's planned funding cut from a nearby hospice is "detrimental" and will reduce patients' quality of life, according to a councillor's motion.

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

A motion to South Cambridgeshire District Council, proposed by Liberal Democrat James Rixon, is calling for the authority to support the campaign to restore the money.

A spokeswoman for Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) said it "cared deeply about providing high-quality end of life care" and was creating a dedicated facility at the hospital.

The funding cut, announced last month, amounts to £829,000 a year and will reduce the hospice's inpatient unit bed capacity from 21 to 12.

The remaining beds are funded by Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Integrated Care System, which has previously said it would continue to do.

Arthur Rank has stated 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".

CUH chief executive Roland Sinker later told a public meeting that the hospice's "very aggressive" media campaign had left a "bad taste in the mouth", and he called the hospice beds "very poor value for money".

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

The county's three Liberal Democrat MPs began a petition which was handed in to No 10 after it gained more than 15,000 signatures.

Rixon motion to a full council meeting next week states: "The proposed cuts to Arthur Rank Hospice are detrimental, will reduce the quality of care for vulnerable patients, and will worsen capacity pressures at Addenbrooke's Hospital.

"Every resident deserves timely, dignified and accessible high-quality healthcare when they need it, whether via their GP surgery, community services, in hospital or end-of-life settings."

The motion asks for Lib Dem council leader Bridget Smith to write to the health secretary, the hospital trust and the local NHS to ask them to commit to maintaining long-term sustainable funding.

The hospital spokeswoman said: "At the start of this financial year, in order to maintain core services within a reduced budget, we undertook an affordability and value for money assessment of the external contracts we hold, and this included the beds we have been funding at Arthur Rank Hospice in Cambridge.

"After taking into account the underutilisation of these beds and the changing model of palliative care we need to provide at the hospital, we took the difficult decision to end the contract.

"We are hugely grateful for the excellent service that Arthur Rank has provided since 2017 and will continue to work with them as a valued partner."

A Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson said it had invested £100m – "the biggest investment in a generation" – to improve hospice services, and "local funding allocations for specific hospices is a decision for integrated care boards".