Hospice Isle of Man’s current funding levels are causing sustainability concerns, the chairman says.

The charity, which offers clinical care and a range of services to help people live well to the end of life, is calling for more certainty around funding as it struggles to make ends meet.

Chairman Chris Hall told the Isle of Man Courier that Hospice’s running costs have been greater than its income for at least the past year.

He said: ‘Every third sector organisation has had a tough couple of years post Covid. It’s harder and harder to raise funds.

‘We still have all the cost pressures that everyone else has with inflation, but as a Hospice, our absolute ethos is that the services we provide at the end of life are totally free to patients.

‘The only certain income we have is from our Manx Care contract and then we rely on the generosity and incredible support of the Manx community.

‘We absolutely appreciate it’s difficult times for everybody but we must do everything we can to make sure that Hospice is always here.’

In the current financial year Manx Care will contribute about 13% of the charity’s running costs.

Chief executive Anne Mills, who will be retiring from her role at the end of the year, said that the charity could have to start ‘rationing’ its services in response to lack of funding.

However, the organisation is trying to ensure this ‘never happens’.

She said: ‘We could possibly have to start rationing services.

‘The term rationing is an economic term that actually just means that if we don’t have enough money coming in to pay for everything, we have to think about what would be the consequences of that, where we might have to trim something.

‘We need to think about how we plan for that scenario.’

Hospice has 14 to 15 months’ worth of running costs in its reserves currently, Mr Hall explained.

He said: ‘Because charities rely on unpredictable income streams we have to have money in the bank each month in advance to pay the wages.’

Mr Hall stressed that the working relationship with Manx Care and the support Hospice gets from the Manx public are ‘truly exceptional’.

Mrs Mills described the effects of Covid, the war in Ukraine, inflation, wage rises, and economic downturn as a ‘perfect storm’.

Hospice currently has 431 volunteers, a figure Mrs Mills and Mr Hall said they’d like to get up to 900.

‘There used to be 500 but Covid had an effect on that as well,’ said Mrs Mills. ‘Our volunteers tend to be of the elderly age range and so they weren’t coming back.

‘There’s the fear factor still from the older population about mixing with groups, so we’re on a campaign to recruit more volunteers.

‘Anybody that’s out there that really feels that they would like to volunteer with us, please get in touch.’

She said: ‘Charities are caught in the middle.

‘With soaring costs, we just desperately need some more funds. We want to protect ourselves so that we never have to put plan B into action.’

On the sustainability of the organisation, Mr Hall said: ‘We absolutely recognise we have a commitment to continually look at the way we work.

‘We’re always looking to do things smarter, better, in partnership with our volunteers, with other service providers, with Manx Care, and in partnership with the business sector.

‘In any healthcare setting, you will never have enough resources to do everything you could.

‘However the main responsibility of Hospice is to make sure we’ve got the best out of everything, so every penny the Manx public donate is spent makes a difference to our charitable cause.’

Pick up the Isle of Man Examiner on Tuesday for our feature on Mrs Mills reflecting on her time with Hospice.