Member

I am a patron of the Acorn Children’s Hospices. There are three, serving the West Midlands and Gloucestershire. I spoke yesterday to Trevor Johnson, their CEO, who told me that this NI threshold has added £416,000 to their bottom-line costs. He said that he had hoped for the same exemptions as had been granted to the NHS but none has been forthcoming. Trevor has worked 15 years in this sector and has never faced anything as bleak as this. Their running costs are £18 million a year, and only 28% of that is statutory funding. They have 314 staff, and 1,000 volunteers. I cannot think of any other sector where you would have to fundraise for that amount to provide a basic level of children’s palliative care.