"Thank you for standing with us" - moving forward from the Crisis Appeal

Last October, Garden House Hospice Care was forced to launch a Crisis Appeal after announcing we were facing serious financial challenges. We later made a difficult decision to close our solely charitably-funded services in order to protect essential palliative care for the North Hertfordshire community.

As a result of these cuts, we are in a more secure position today. However, we still have a fundraising target of £2,714,000 to achieve this financial year as we continue to fight for more sustainable funding.

CEO Lisa Hunt shares a short message in the below video, plus a full statement of thanks and looking forward to the future:

Over recent months, you have stood beside Garden House Hospice Care and supported us through one of the most challenging periods in our history. For that, I want to offer my heartfelt thanks.

When we launched our Crisis Appeal last year, we did so openly and honestly, sharing the financial pressures we were facing and the difficult decisions required to protect the future of our hospice. You did not turn away. You stood with us.

As we now begin to look ahead, it is important to pause and recognise the extraordinary support we have received from our community. Your generosity, compassion and trust have helped us navigate this incredibly difficult chapter and secure the future of hospice care for local families.

Together, we have protected our core hospice services. We have kept our inpatient beds open, maintained our community teams, and ensured that specialist palliative care continues to reach those who need it most. Achieving this required some very difficult decisions, but our clinical services and the care provided by our dedicated teams remain strong and at the same level as they were three years ago.

To safeguard the long-term future of Garden House Hospice Care, we had to reduce a number of services funded solely through charitable income. We know many people were saddened, as we were, by the closure of our Wellbeing Hubs, Compassionate Neighbours, dementia services and schools’ outreach work. These services brought comfort, connection and support to so many across our community, and the decisions to close them were not taken lightly.

However painful, these changes were necessary to ensure we could continue delivering the specialist hospice and palliative care that local people rely upon every day.

Moving forward

Today, because of your support, Garden House Hospice Care is moving forward with renewed stability and determination. Thank you for helping us protect hospice care for our community, now and for the future.

We are now firmly focused on the future through the delivery of our new 10-year strategy - ensuring that everyone who can benefit from our care receives the right support, at the right time, and for as long as they need it.

Our strategy is centered on protecting and strengthening our fundamental hospice services while continuing to evolve to meet the needs of our community. We know that the need for hospice care is both growing and changing. More people are living longer with life-limiting conditions and advancing illness, often experiencing uncertainty, loss of independence and repeated hospital admissions long before the final stages of life.

This is why our focus on earlier, proactive palliative care is so important. We know that people living with advancing illness may need support over many months and years, not only at the very end of life. By intervening earlier, we can help people manage symptoms more effectively, maintain independence, plan ahead with confidence and improve quality of life for both patients and those closest to them.

Our ambition is to provide compassionate, specialist care that responds to people’s changing needs throughout their illness journey - delivering support, reassurance and expert care wherever people call home.

This is what essential modern hospice care looks like: being there not only at the end of life, but earlier, helping people live well, regain confidence and maintain dignity for as long as possible.

With every closure and change comes renewal - and that is where we stand today. Following our challenging Crisis Appeal and the uncertain months that followed, we now stand renewed, replenished and energised by the love, generosity and unwavering commitment of this community and our loyal supporters.

While we did not reach the full £750,000 target, the response we received and the difference you made is extraordinary. Through the appeal, alongside the uplift in donations that followed, you have helped us move forward on our path to recovery.

We have been deeply moved by the support shown across our community. We welcomed 172 new regular givers - people who have chosen to stand alongside us each month - creating a vital and sustainable income stream that allows us to plan ahead and continue caring for local families. We have also been proud to welcome new corporate partners and see local businesses step forward with generosity and belief in what we do. Once again, our community’s events have also been incredible, from the Farmers’ on Christmas Lights Tour to the Garden House Charity Cup, showing what is possible when everyone comes together with purpose and compassion.

Every event, every donation, every act of kindness truly matters.

Our funding

You may have also been following the powerful work of Hospice UK and partners across the hospice sector, speaking directly to Parliament and to the Prime Minister in a bid for fair and sustainable funding for hospices nationwide. This campaign continues to shine a vital light on the pressures facing hospices like ours and on the urgent need for the Government to recognise the irreplaceable role we play in communities everywhere.

We are proud to continue playing our part in that conversation and stand fully behind Hospice UK’s four-point plan. We will keep raising our voice, helping to grow recognition of the value hospices bring to the health and care system. Doing so will ease pressure on hospitals, supporting people at home, caring for those in care homes and ensuring more people can access compassionate, specialist end-of-life care. Our patients, our families and our communities deserve no less.

As we look to the future, we do so with hope, renewed energy and a deep sense of purpose. Our work will never be done and we would not have it any other way. Going forward, we will focus on building more stable foundations: securing a firmer footing, achieving sustainable funding and ensuring that this cherished place remains here for everyone who needs it - not just today, but for all the tomorrows to come.

So, while we celebrate the progress we have made, we must continue to be honest: we still need you. It will cost £6.5 million to provide our services this year and we need to raise £7,435.62 every single day. We know that, just as you have done before, you will continue to stand with us. Together, we will be here for every family who needs us, now and into the future.