Money Matters

Tony Hardware- Chairman of Trustees

CHAIRMAN’S UPDATE FOR FINANCIAL YEAR 2005/06

Another year of solid performance in operating the extremely valuable service we give to the local community. 

The Day Hospice continued to provide support and palliative care to many patients throughout the year.  The high standard of our nursing care has been augmented by regular art and music therapy sessions.  These, with our physiotherapy capabilities, form a strong base for a service for which there appears to be so much demand. During the past year we have extended our actions to include a more formal bereavement counselling service. This has proved to be very effective and worthwhile for patients, friends and family alike.

The Lymphoedema Clinic continues to consolidate its reputation of providing a very necessary service in a function, which, in general, seems so lacking within the NHS.  We have, however, made strides in the past year and have now obtained NHS commitment to help fund some of the costs of the service.  The commitment is in the form of the secondment of a senior employee from within the Community Physiotherapy Dept. of Wycombe PCT.  We are very fortunate to have someone of high standard and experience to manage and progress the work of the department.  I hope that this augurs well for anticipating a greater financial involvement in the future provision of this much sort after treatment.

As I have said previously, the expansion of our capabilities are currently severely handicapped by the lack of premise space.  I have also reported, over the past two years, that strenuous efforts are been made to overcome this problem.  Despite the efforts over that time, we are edging further down the line towards our intentions.  We continue to investigate all possibilities and have to hope that a solution will be found shortly.

With regard to the financial situation for the past year and despite the rather gloomy outlook following the first half-year results, our net income from fundraising for the second half showed considerable improvement.  The net income for the year from shops’ trading, events, general donations and legacies amounted to £127,000.  Not unexpectedly this was somewhat lower than the £158,000 for the previous year and reflects the difficulty in upholding our income to match the ever-increasing costs of providing our charitable services.  Although the total operating deficit of £38,000 was considerably more than the previous year’s £5,500, it was more than covered by the income generated by investments made in previous years.  Thus the year ended with our resources increasing by £63,000, just £17,000 less than the previous year.  It was also a good year for the value of our investments, which increased by £119,000, giving us a total increase of £182,000 to our accumulated funds and towards our development plans.

The Trustees remain committed to providing an arena in which the quality of patient care is ever improving for an expanding number of patients.

My heartfelt thanks for your continued support.

Tony Hardware  - Chairman of Trustees