How can we save our wonderful hospice movement?

It read: “I have been reading about the wonderful hospice movement, which cares for the terminally ill and the dying, keeping them happy and free from pain, and giving support to their families.

“When chatting to a group of friends, we all thought how marvellous it would be to have a hospice in Darlington. However, we all lack courage and know-how about getting started and wonder if any readers would be interested or have any helpful comments.”

Read more: Tees Valley hospices meet MPs to discuss funding issues

More than 40 readers were immediately interested, from as far afield as Leyburn and Hutton Rudby.

Interest was so great that a packed public meeting was held in the Dolphin Centre on February 5, 1986. It heard much pessimism from places such as Newcastle and Sunderland, which had started their own hospices at phenomenal costs – £458 per bed per week and £100,000 annual running costs.

But Darlington wasn’t to be deterred. It set up a committee and started fundraising, which led to a sitting service and from there to a day centre for terminally ill in Harewood Hill.

The initiative even came to the attention of Mother Teresa, of Calcutta, who wrote wishing it success – and giving it a name.

Friends of St Teresa's at the opening ceremony of the Woodlands hospice in Darlington in February 1998

The point of the story is that Darlington’s hospice is central to the town in a way that few other charities are. Townspeople, like Yvonne Rowe, saw there was a desperately felt local need which an over-stretched NHS was never likely to fill, and so they stepped in, battled terrific odds and succeeded.

Most hospices have similarly close connections to their towns and communities. In 1998, the North East was the only region of the country not to have a children’s hospice, and so the Echo helped the Butterwick movement bring some good out of Princess Diana’s death, raising £500,000 in her memory.

Gary Barlow with Anna, six, and Fay, eight, at the opening of Butterwick children's hospice in Stockton in 1998

Rather than Mother Teresa, Gary Barlow from Take That was enlisted to help, he performed the opening ceremony.

Hospices tend to be more visible in our communities that most other charities. Most people who’ve lived for any length of time in a town will know of someone whose last days were eased immeasurably by a hospice.

These patients are at the most vulnerable moment in their entire lives. They deserve a little time, free from pain, and a little warmth and companionship – they can’t be bunged on a hospital trolley or dumped to die at home where they just worry about the strain on their own family.

Across the country, the hospice movement looks after 300,000 patients a year, a burden that would otherwise fall on the NHS. That burden is more than one of just money – it is about beds, as well. A major cause of the current NHS crisis is that there aren’t enough free beds, and so if another 300,000 patients find they have nowhere else to go, our hospitals are going to grind to a halt.

Hospices typically rely on local fundraising for more than 70 per cent of their income, but with the cost of living biting, local people find it difficult to give on such a regular basis.

Plus the hospices themselves are facing soaring bills: 300 per cent fuel increases on top of inflation and staff costs, as there just aren’t enough nurses to go round.

Children from Northwood Primary School, Darlington, in 2011, raising money for St Teresa's Hospice - hospices have a direct connection to their local communities that many charities must envy

Our communities would have a huge hole ripped in them if local hospices were to close, but it is hard to see how they can afford to stay open, unless something changes.

Five months ago, The Northern Echo called for imaginative thinking from our politicians in a bid to stave off this inescapable storm. At a national level, we cannot say that that has happened, although it is good to see our local Conservative and Labour MPs coming together to try to work through the problem.

A start, say the hospices, would be for the NHS to pay them a fair price for the work they do on the NHS’s behalf.

That may be keep the wolf from the door for the moment, but it cannot end the long term spiral of falling donations, increasing costs and ever-growing demand. A solution is not easy to see, although it does seem that the taxpayer is going to have bear a greater share of the costs if only to prevent even more blocked beds in the NHS.

Of all the crises facing the country at the moment, this is a huge one which has a big impact on ordinary people. We need another Yvonne Rowe moment to galvanise people into action, this time to save our wonderful hospice movement.