Naomi House and Jacksplace digging into reserves to meet demand

Naomi House and Jackplace have reported it will have to access its reserves after their running costs have risen by a third.

This comes after the Together for Short Lives "Overstretched and underfunded - The State of Children's Hospice Funding in 2025" report noted that costs have risen by an average of 15 per cent for hospices.

The report states that demand for children’s palliative care is rising and pressures are mounting across the health and care system. Since 2019/20, the number of children and young people receiving end-of-life care has more than doubled, rising by 98 per cent nationally.

Naomi House and Jacksplace receive a small amount of government funding but rely heavily on donors to deliver their full service. Government funding is never guaranteed, always falls short of what is needed, and hasn’t kept pace with rising demand and increasing costs.

Naomi House garden (Image: Naomi House)

Another contributing factor to rising costs is the constant struggle to recruit and retain skilled staff. All of these demands mean the charity is using its reserves to meet a planned deficit of £1.4m this year.

Mark Smith, Chief Executive at Naomi House and Jacksplace, said: “The reason we are utilising our reserves is because we have ambitious plans to invest in our facilities and services to ensure that we can be here for children, young adults and their families in the long term. We want to deliver the full service that our families expect, and more, including becoming a Research and Education Centre - supporting other medical professionals and hospices, doing more in the community, and supporting even more children and young adults. The support of our community means that over the coming year, we can look forward to being able to reach more and do more for the families who need us.”

Katie Lumsden, Director of Finance at Naomi House and Jacksplace, said: “Keeping a charity like ours operating at such a high level of care is a financial balancing act. Every pound and every penny has to work as hard as possible. Rising costs are putting us under strain. Government funding hasn’t kept pace with rising demand and increased running costs. While our charitable expenditure has increased by 31 per cent since 2020/21, local NHS funding from integrated care boards is 25 per cent lower. Add to this the cost of recruiting and keeping skilled staff and it means our overheads are even higher. We can operate at a deficit and still deliver the level of care families across the area need, but we can’t do this forever.”