Britain’s hospices may have to cut back care for terminally ill patients because of the recession, according to exclusive research carried out for Sky News.

More than a third of hospices expect they will fail to raise enough money this financial year to fund their services. A similar number are expecting a funding gap in the next financial year, which starts in April. Hospices provide essential medical and respite care for patients who are terminally ill, or who have life-limiting medical conditions. The nation’s independent hospice charities provide more than 2,000 beds for end of life care.

Key facts about hospice care:

* Hospice care is given free of charge.
* Hospices support the patient, family and close friends.
* Most adult hospice users are cancer patients.
* Many children in hospices have progressive, degenerative conditions.

Running the 195 services costs £484m a year, but only a small amount of their funding comes from the NHS. In England, the average level of government funding is 31% for adult hospices, and just 15% for children’s hospices. The rest comes through charitable donations from the public.

Mark Relf, senior fundraiser at the Pasque Hospice in Luton, said: “People have got less money in their pockets; donations are down by as much as a third in some instances. People are worried about their jobs, people are losing their jobs; so they have less disposable income to give to charities,” he said.

The research was carried out for Sky News by Help the Hospices and Children’s Hospices UK. It shows that 14% of hospices are already considering cutbacks in services.

Pasque Hospice charity’s chief executive David White told Sky News: “The ultimate option for us would be the need to shut beds. That’s the thing we would avoid more than anything else. But so many other things we do for people – bereavement support, and so on – are under review and potentially at risk.”

Before enacting service cutbacks, hospices should consider engaging Expense Reduction Analysts to carry out a thorough review of all overhead expenditure, on a “no savings, no fee” basis. Their experts have already worked successfully with a number of hospices and have achieved average savings of 20%, in cost categories as diverse as; medical supplies, laundry, utilities, insurance, communications and janitorial supplies.