Extra government funding would 'protect hospice'

Increased government funding for Isle of Man's only hospice would help to "protect the service for the future", the chief executive has said.

A sum of £1.75m from Manx Care's budget was provided to the organisation in 2025, a figure below the £2.4m it had requested to maintain core clinical services.

Hospice Isle of Man chief executive John Knight said the uplift would have made it "feel very sustainable" as a way to offset increasing financial pressures and a fall in legacy donations.

In April, Tynwald agreed that the funding awarded to third sector organisations, including the hospice, should be looked at as part of an ongoing healthcare reform review.

Mr Knight said it was also "incumbent" on the charity to manage the current challenges "in different ways", such as the introduction of a private pain management clinic.

Profits from the commercially-run Crowther Clinic, set to offer joint and headache pain relief services for private patients from 12 June, would be reinvested in the hospice's general services, including end of life care.

In March, the organisation issued an open letter raising concerns that "increasing financial pressures" were "threatening the long term sustainability" of the service.

It called for a review of the existing funding model and "early action to prevent any unnecessary reduction in specialist palliative and end of life care".

That was someone that was reflected in the wider debate in the Manx parliament on the Manx Care mandate in April.

Mr Knight said the organisation had made a deficit in five of the last six years, despite "false perceptions we are a wealthy charity", leaving it with reserves of about 12 months of funding.

He said the staffing headcount had been reduced by 26 members to a team of 106 in recent years, which meant the charity was "now at the point where there is not much more by way savings in the support functions to be made".

Mr Knight said he had also noticed a slow decline in legacy donations, which could be connected to the current economic climate, and a jump in costs "which are out our control" such as pay increases, and the cost of energy, medicines and other clinical supplies.

The requested extra funding from government would have meant "we would be at that the tipping point into a very sustainable organisation" although it would still have to secure most of its funding via donations, he said.

"We have to manage the pressures by fundraising in a different way, such as using skills we have internally to expand our portfolio and drive money back towards charitable activity," he said.

That would protect the service for the future because population data suggested "demand is only set to grow", he added.

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