It is a strange anomaly that hospice and end of life care is not fully funded by the NHS. Like many in the hospice sector, I often find myself repeating this fact to people who were unaware that most hospices rely on fundraising and charity shops to fund the bulk of their care. We are at pains to make this known because we are all too aware how much our continued existence relies on people knowing that their support is what sustains us.

Hospices are here to support people at the end of life to live with as much comfort, dignity and independence as possible, and then to eventually die well. It is a wonderful truth that the very people who have seen the benefits of hospice care for a loved one are often the ones who so generously donate to ensure services are here for others.

However, the hospice sector has been warning for years that this is not a financially sustainable model. Unfortunately, we are now seeing the start of the tipping point, with hospices across the country reducing services in order to balance their books. It is heartbreaking to see because we know that we should be expanding to support more people and not reducing what we do. Our population is ageing and living and dying with more complex conditions and more and more people need our services each year.

At Royal Trinity Hospice, we are extremely fortunate that our generous local community, here in central and south west London, raises millions of pounds every year to fund the services we provide here on our inpatient unit and in thousands of people’s homes.

However, our costs have increased significantly over the past two years. We need to make sure we pay our skilled staff a fair wage and have had to absorb the impact of the increased costs of food, fuel and electricity, which of course also increases the cost of raising funds, all while responding to the significant increase in people dying who need our support.

We have been running a deficit for the past three years because NHS funding has not responded to our growing costs and is currently only covering 25% of the cost of our core services. We receive £3m from the NHS each year towards delivering services which cost us £12m to run. Put in human terms, for every person the NHS funds, we need to fundraise for the cost of another 3 people’s care.

We have been raising serious concerns to our NHS commissioners about the level of funding we receive which needs to increase for us to be here in the future. We need a national funding package from the government to sort this out because local NHS commissioners are clearly not solving this problem.

Having a good, dignified death and dying well in a compassionate society should be fundamental for everyone. Those of us with experience of seeing a loved one live and die under the care of a hospice know the difference that hospices make. The goal must be for all those who are living with a life-limiting illness and dying in this country to be able to access the specialist care they need, where they need it. Here at Royal Trinity Hospice, we urge the government to listen to the concerns of the hospice sector and address our needs – it is not only the right thing to do, but ultimately inaction will cost the NHS more if hospice services continue to be slashed.