Annual Report
and Accounts 2020-21
A year of
transformation
The last year has been a momentous one. As a society, we have learnt to adjust many aspects of our lives to deal with a global pandemic. When the virus first hit and the UK lockdown was announced our focus at St Christopher’s was on keeping core services running: making sure we could still support the people who needed us most, whilst keeping everyone safe; trying to secure adequate PPE during a national shortage and supporting people to work in very new and different ways. But, just a few weeks in, we could see the transformational impact that COVID-19 was going to have.
During this period we have reached more people than ever before – in fact we supported 11% more patients, carers and family members than the prior year. Most patients prefer to be cared for at home, in line with people’s preferences, and we have cared for an even greater proportion of patients in their homes during the pandemic. We stepped in to support the growing numbers of people needing end of life care as hospitals struggled to cope with rising numbers of COVID-19 admissions and increasing number of deaths. Care was provided over the phone, through video consultation and online group sessions as well as face-to-face when needed. The combination of support in these proportions was new to us, but had many unexpected benefits. For example, feedback to our bereavement teams showed that many felt more comfortable and able to speak openly over the phone; our community teams were able to support many more people without the travel time between people’s homes and people were joining our online wellbeing groups who, previously, may have been unable or fearful of coming into the hospice in person.
We have witnessed a strong spirit of innovation – not just in how we provide care but from all areas of the organisation. Our Fundraising Team pivoted to livestreaming events online when we couldn’t meet in person. Our Retail Team upped our presence on eBay when our shops were unable to open. We also set up community aid initiatives at speed, such as delivering essential medication and food to people who had to stay at home as they were self-isolating.
Our approach to education and training was similar, as virtual learning quickly assumed a central role. Nearly 3,500 people tuned in across the year, giving us an opportunity to affect real, widespread change. This included developing a webinar series to mark the launch of the first palliative care nursing model in three decades, the dissemination of a new toolkit to improve end of life care for those with No Recourse to Public Funds and a session exploring Dame Cicely Saunders and her legacy. In early 2021, we took ownership of a new state-of-the art building, St Christopher’s CARE (St Christopher’s Centre for Awareness and Response to End of Life), a real achievement given the uncertainty and restrictions throughout 2020.
We want to acknowledge our colleagues whose ‘nothing can stop us’ attitude really pulled us through and provided insight about new ways of working to stay ahead. We also couldn’t be more grateful for the outpouring of support we experienced from our community. Beyond financial donations, our local community provided donations of PPE, food, letters of support and other thoughtful items to keep staff morale high. These kind gestures were so appreciated, and left us truly humbled.
This year has not been without its losses for individuals, our partner organisations and indeed the hospice sector. We want to acknowledge, in particular, the death of Dr Mary Baines, a pioneer in palliative care and supporter of St Christopher’s over many years, most recently as one of our valued vice presidents. Her legacy in terms of home-based palliative care, management of distressing symptoms and the value of education live on in much of our organisational life. Thank you, Mary.
In what has been an impossibly difficult year for everyone, thank you to everyone else also, for keeping us going and being there for the people of south east London when they needed you most.
Heather Richardson and Shaun O’Leary
Joint Chief Executives, St Christopher’s Hospice
Our year in numbers 2020/21
5,000
Number of people we provided care for (approximate)
10,664
Number of home visits we made
3,275
Number of people who attended one of our learning events
6,142
Number of rehabilitation sessions we delivered
We’re here thanks to the generosity of our supporters.
Your kindness means that we are able to continue to provide vital services to people in south east London and beyond.
Where our money comes from
An incredible 54% of income is down to you; be this through fundraising activities, leaving gifts in Wills or buying goods in our shops. We are so very grateful for the money you donate and we are careful to invest it wisely, in ways that will best serve the people who need our support.
Where our money goes
It cost £22.9m to run St Christopher’s in 2020-21. Here’s a breakdown of how we spent the money that you gave us. Please also see our full financial review in the downloadable Annual Report and Accounts 2020/21.
In December 2020, we sent questionnaires to patients and carers so we can better understand what we are doing well and where we need to improve, to ensure we’re providing the best possible end of life care.
We were heartened by the results and have included a few key highlights below:
Our vision is a world in which all dying people and those close to them have access to care and support when and wherever they need it. Through our key themes of community, inclusivity and sustainability, our ambitions are:
Adapt our care services to meet people’s changing needs
…to improve
people’s
experience of
end of life locally
Invest in hospice-led innovation related to death, dying and loss
…to strengthen hospices’ contribution nationally
Increase public and professional confidence and knowledge about end of life
…to transform end of life care globally
When we started 2020-21, we were just at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and its duration and impact were unclear. This year, despite continued and unprecedented challenges, we’ve thrived and made significant progress against our 2020-23 strategy:
Strategic ambitions
Adapt our care services to meet people’s changing needs to improve people’s experience of end of life locally
Supporting people and their families
At the start of the pandemic, we amended our model for care, to ensure services were maintained and we continued a two-way relationship with our patients, families and community members, despite the challenges of COVID-19.
Some examples of this include:
- Increasing our home-based care using a blend of virtual and face-to-face consultations
- Maintaining a focus on helping people live well, despite lack of access to gym sessions, by offering both individual and group virtual rehabilitation and complementary therapy sessions
- Moving our entire wellbeing offering – an extensive timetable of activities from art and music sessions to quizzes and exercise classes – online, giving people a chance to share experiences and chat to others, no matter where they were
- Shifting support for both our adult bereavement and our Candle childhood bereavement services from face-to-face to telephone consultations.
Supporting other hospices
This year, more than ever, it was important that we worked with and supported others in the hospice sector.
- We’ve been providing remote, on-call support to Ardgowan Hospice in Greenock, Scotland since 2019
- We’ve also continued to develop our close relationship with Greenwich & Bexley Community Hospice by providing shared medical support and joint palliative care learning initiatives
- When local hospices had to close service temporarily during COVID-19 we offered beds to their residents where this was essential.
Supporting our community
When the pandemic hit in March 2020, we wanted our communities to know that we were not going anywhere. That’s why we proactively gave as much support as we could, particularly to those who were isolated and without access to help. Lockdown did not mean shut down for St Christopher’s!
- We created a series of lockdown reassurance videos to show the community that we were still here
- We launched Community Aid, our COVID-19 initiative working with local people to support the wellbeing of community members who were at home and isolated during lockdown for a variety of reasons
- We supported local people who volunteered their time to ensure they felt part of the community and that their needs were met.
Remembering the bereaved
It’s important to provide moments to talk about, remember and celebrate the lives of those who are no longer here. Over the last year, this has proved incredibly difficult, as the restrictions during the pandemic meant no one was able to gather and grieve as they normally would… but that didn’t stop St Christopher’s offering to help in different ways.
- In October, we took on Lewisham Bereavement Counselling Service (LBC), a well-established community bereavement service supported by local counsellors for the local community, regardless of the type of death.
- A new collaboration of several partners, including St Christopher’s, formed Kings College Hospital Charity (KCHC) Bereavement Service.
- August saw the return of our Remembering with Ribbons event where people were invited to dedicate a ribbon in memory of a friend or relative.
- In December, we invited people to join our annual Remembering with St Christopher’s event to reflect on the year and remember people that we love who are no longer with us. The online service included an opportunity to dedicate a light in memory of a loved one, which was one of many displayed all around the hospice gardens in Sydenham.
- In January, we launched the first ever Snowdrops for St Christopher’s to give people the opportunity to celebrate the lives of friends or relatives by dedicating a Snowdrop in their memory.
We launched the first ever Snowdrops for St Christopher’s to give people the opportunity to celebrate the lives of friends or relatives by dedicating a Snowdrop in their memory
Strategic ambitions
Invest in hospice- led innovation related to death, dying and loss to strengthen hospices’ contribution nationally
Supporting people’s choices
Part of being independent for every individual is the right to choose the environment in which they die. Many people, given the choice, would like to die at home and we make every effort to support those decisions through a variety of initiatives.
- Funding from the Burdett Trust enabled us to launch Choose Home, a service which aims to help people with a prognosis of two to three weeks left to live to improve quality of life, reduce isolation and help them to stay at home in surroundings they are comfortable in, where this is their wish. In the first three months we supported 79 people, receiving positive feedback from patients and families
- We made available a consultant nurse and doctor to work in specific care homes in Bromley and supported several care homes with outbreaks of COVID-19 to ensure the immediate response was working closely with Public Health England, the NHS Bromley CCG and the local council
- We embarked on a joint venture with Marie Curie and Nesta to better understand how we can harness our learnings from the last year to reshape future experiences of death and bereavement and found the following are essential:
-
- Ensuring care is equitable and person-centred
- Supporting people to feel comfortable talking about death
- Encouraging community-led response
- Fostering greater opportunities for collaboration
- Increased use and access to digital tools.
Working in partnership
We know that part of delivering the best care and support is through collaboration. This year, more than ever, we’ve relied on family and at-home carers to be our window into the daily needs of many patients.
In an effort to improve communication between carers and members of our multi-disciplinary teams (MDT), we’ve developed the Carers’ Diary initiative. Its purpose is to be a reflective tool for carers’ experience of end of life care, help ‘fill in the gaps’ for carers when they are not present and to gain useful feedback from carers to influence daily care.
Highlighting and redressing inequalities
Death does not discriminate but, unfortunately, sometimes the system of care does. As people live longer and develop more complex needs, it’s important that we consider the needs of all those in the communities we support.
In pursuit of our mission to offer high quality, holistic care to everyone who needs it, whenever and wherever that may be, we embarked on several initiatives to tackle challenges and support this vulnerable groups.
- After 18 months of research and collaboration with expert partners as well as the generous support of Hospice UK and St James’s Place Charitable Foundation, we published Do You See Us?, a guide to help hospice and palliative care teams, migrant centre workers, social workers and welfare teams be better prepared to support those who have No Recourse to Public Funds (NRFP) to access the same quality of end of life care extended to the rest of the UK population
- Cascade – a two-year project funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing – which aims to increase the quality of end of life care for older people with severe frailty, has identified key skills for nurses in a variety of settings and provided training for 28 individuals in the last year to support the development and growth of these essential skills and improve care
- During the pandemic, 253,000 people in England have been identified as homeless and are living in temporary accommodation, the highest figure for 14 years. Staff from St Christopher’s were one of the first two hospices to partake in a new model to improve end of life care for homeless people, focussing on embedding person-centred care and support for sick homeless people, by bringing together palliative care and multi-disciplinary support into homeless hostels and day centres.
Choose Home is provided by trained volunteers, carers and registered nurses who are supported by consultant nurses, clinical nurse specialists and doctors, over phone and video, as needed
Strategic ambitions
Increase public and professional confidence and knowledge about end of life to transform end of life care globally
Demystifying death through
public education
At St Christopher’s, we often use the term ‘death literacy’ to describe the knowledge and confidence people have when talking about death. One of our core ambitions is to support that literacy to reduce fear and demystify taboos.
‘Living with Grief’ hosted by Esther Rantzen on Channel 5
This documentary featured Durone, who was supported by our Candle Child Bereavement Service following the death of this brother when he was just 11. Esther interviewed Durone, who is now in his 20s, in what was an extremely moving interview.
BBC Radio London
Care Director Amanda Mayo was interviewed live on air with presenter Jo Good, about the importance of hospice support to mark Hospice Care Week.
Hospice Care Week with Hospice UK
Adil, a member of our Young Adults Group, was the focus of a social media campaign from Hospice UK to mark Hospice Care Week, where he shared what it’s like at one of our Saturday sessions and what the group means to him.
Community collaboration
Over the last year, we’ve worked with community members to run several sessions with the aim of increasing public knowledge and confidence about death, dying and loss.
- Online death cafes and bereavement cafes for community members – three a week across the five boroughs we serve
- Online training and learning sessions for professionals – hundreds of people attended these sessions from all around the country
- We collaborated with members of the community to create and curate the ‘Scrolled Life’ Exhibition at the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill, sharing stories of creative arts participants with marginal lived experiences, including hospice patients, asylum seekers and people living with long-term mental health conditions.
Transforming professional
education and training
More than 700 people joined the online sessions, each of which introduced a new initiative or model, with a virtual tour of the new centre, the first meeting of the Cicely Saunders Society, and the launch of two ground-breaking new guides, the Lantern Model, and our No Recourse to Public Funds toolkit, Do You See Us?
To complement and capitalise on the new facilities, we’ve refreshed our curriculum, with an increased focus on public engagement as well as a range of new products for professionals.
This includes a new suite of dementia resources, skills workshops and a regular webinar series focusing on topical issues like grief and loss. Among the products designed to ensure enrichment for a wider audience will be two conferences aimed at opening up the conversation around death and dying.
We responded to the learning needs of health and social care professionals in all settings with a suite of new products designed to provide nurses, doctors and allied health professionals with the tools to respond to the increase in demand for end-of-life care.
During the first wave 1,227 people logged on to the 20 free webinars and online learning sessions we provided. Many of these individuals, including GPs, hadn’t benefitted from support from the hospice before. Many returned for our six-part Second Wave webinar series in November and December.
Developing ever closer ties with local health providers has helped us further increase engagement. This has been demonstrated by the continuation of the Hospice Education & Learning Partnership (HELP) with Greenwich & Bexley Community Hospice and exemplified with the recognising dying training delivered to NHS staff at the Nightingale Hospital in London.
New partnerships with Oxleas NHS Trust and Bromley Healthcare have seen widespread take-up of our Introduction to End of Life Care courses in particular.
We marked the first ever International Year of the Nurse in style. The President of the Royal College of Nursing, a pioneer in American palliative care nursing, a former MP and a lifelong campaigner for better conditions for nurses were among the inspiring speakers at our seven-part series of webinars.
In addition, we searched the world, identified and celebrated 30 Pioneering Nurses driving palliative nursing forward to change the experience of people approaching the end of life.
Our third means of marking the Year of the Nurse was to launch the first new model of palliative care in 30 years – the Lantern Model. With almost 600 people joining the four-part webinar series, it’s clear this new model articulating the unique, vital and skilled role of nurses caring for people at the end-of-life, was long overdue.
Made possible by the support of the Florence Nightingale Foundation and Burdett Trust, the model is designed to support individual nurses as well as organisations looking to improve care in any setting.
As well as increasing engagement locally and nationally, our strategic partnership with the Institute of Palliative Medicine Kerala, Sanjeevan Palliative Care Project Puducherry, and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Bangladesh, has seen us reach an even greater global audience.
More than 136 delegates from 43 mostly low- and middle-income countries, joined the six-month Palliative Care Fellowship online in February as we continue to identify and support new leaders to establish and expand palliative care services across the world.
Community
partnering with those around us to become stronger together
Inclusivity
encouraging everyone to be their authentic self, feel valued and get involved
Sustainability
remaining resilient and ensuring our future
Community:
partnering with those around us to become stronger together
Increased community support
We’re proud of how we’ve continued to support those most vulnerable in our communities during a global pandemic, but nothing could have prepared us for the incredible generosity from our community to us.
Living through a pandemic has placed a strain on all of us and, at St Christopher’s, we also felt the challenges imposed by the pandemic. When the virus first hit, our main priority was continuing to support people living with a terminal illness whilst making sure we kept the people we were caring for and our staff safe.
This became increasingly difficult as we, and the NHS, struggled to secure adequate PPE for staff.
After exploring all avenues, we put out a plea to the local community on social media and were overwhelmed by the response. Deliveries arrived each day of surgical masks, aprons, visors and goggles (including swimming, cycling and science lab goggles!).
We also had local people making gowns and scrubs for staff (some made from costumes from cancelled theatre shows) and deliveries of everything from food parcels to hand cream kept staff morale high during some of the most stressful conditions we have ever experienced.
Then, a few weeks later as we started to feel the financial pinch of closing our charity shops and cancelling our fundraising events, we saw an outpouring of financial gifts in response to our Emergency Appeal which raised over £130,000. One family sent in a donation of £500 – the amount they would have spent on their annual holiday which had been cancelled as a result of the virus. Not only did these gifts mean we could keep supporting the growing numbers of people who needed us, they also highlighted how St Christopher’s is very much part of the local community.
And as we’ve already mentioned, our Community Action Team supported people to volunteer their time to help others and, in some cases, even took some strain off of our clinical teams. It was a genuinely reciprocal partnership.
Inclusivity:
partnering with those around us to become stronger together
Learning and growing together
It’s only through education, discussion and understanding that we can truly say we stand for equality and diversity at St Christopher’s.
2020 was a tough year as we battled an international pandemic and people gathered around the world to stand up against racism following the death of George Floyd. In response to this, many organisations, including St Christopher’s, made a commitment to improving equality, diversity and inclusion within the workplace.
We began by holding two externally facilitated workshops, open to all staff, to explore what it means to be a truly inclusive organisation and understand what we are doing well and where we need to focus our efforts to improve. These workshops were attended by more than 30 people and their recommendations formed a roadmap for our newly formed Steering Committee known as FREDIE (Fairness, Respect, Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Engagement).
We also continue in our commitment to ensure people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups are represented across our workforce with processes such as anonymised shortlisting for vacancies, thus removing any unconscious bias and active encouragement to people from BAME groups to apply for our new roles as they become vacant, especially those on our Trustee Board and in more senior positions.
Sustainability:
remaining resilient and ensuring our future
Stability amongst uncertainty
We’ve taken some significant steps over the last year to ensure the long-term sustainability of our organisational direction and our finances.
Last year, we welcomed four new Trustees to our Board: Nick Diamond, Tony Hunter, John King and Dee Townsend. Neil Goulden also joined us from 1 April 20 St Christopher’s Hospice annual report and accounts 2020-21 2021 as our new Chair of Trustees, bringing with him a wealth of experience and a passion for social justice, innovation, education and clinical excellence.
We also said goodbye to three long-standing members of our Board during the year: Barbara Noble, Richard Saunders and Morgan Jones, our retiring Chair. Over the years Morgan has overseen many significant developments and improvements across the hospice. In that time, we’ve more than doubled the number of patients we care for and seen St Christopher’s CARE (a £6.7m new education facility that aims to be a space to explore living with death, dying and loss) develop from an initial idea through to construction.
During the pandemic, the Board met regularly to support the Executive Team and to assure itself on progress in the management of the associated risks. This was in addition to the core schedule of previously planned Board meetings.
After great consideration and many years of effort to turn St Christopher’s Personal Care into a financially viable business we reluctantly took the decision to close this service. We had continued to implement measures to grow income and client numbers for the service but sadly, this did not prove to be financially sustainable. Once the decision had been made our priority was ensuring our clients care needs continued to be met until an alternative care provider had been found, as well as supporting the Personal Care workforce to find suitable employment – both at the hospice and with other care providers.
2020-21 could have been a very damaging year for our finances but, due to exceptional one-offs, we have generated net income (before movements in pensions and investments funds) of £4.5m.
Our shops which we rely on to generate money for the hospice had to close for seven months and our Fundraising Team could not hold events in public as they would do in a normal year. We are therefore grateful for the generous donations which we have received from the local community during the last year, and £3.5m of funding which we received from NHS England via Hospice UK as part of the nationwide government COVID-19 response to hospices.
On top of this, it has been an unusually high year for legacies income – with £6.1m generated, this was £2.4m higher than the previous year. We have also received £0.9m of one-off funding from the NHS (via the South East London CCG) which has been allocated to support us in future years of expected future challenge. Both of these factors combined are the key reason that our financial results in this report show our net income being £4.5m (before movements in pensions and investment funds).
This additional legacies income, and one-off NHS funding, have been ringfenced in newly created designated funds to support us in future years of expected financial challenge; we are concerned as to how the COVID-19 pandemic has damaged the wider economy, and donors’ individual finances, meaning that we expect it to be hard for us to raise the money we need in future years, beyond 2020-21.
Keeping everyone safe
From extra cleaning to regular COVID-19 testing we’ve prioritised safety. While doing this, we have tried to remain human-centred to support our patients at the end of their life.
As with any organisation, over the last year we’ve developed additional procedures to ensure that our workforce, patients and visitors were kept as safe as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic, bearing in mind heightened levels of the virus within the community, and that we were caring for patients with COVID-19. For example, we increased our cleaning protocols, wore additional PPE, and reduced our on-site presence in line with public health guidelines. Staff also had to socially isolate if they were infected or in close contact with someone who had been infected.
We allowed a restricted number of visitors onto the IPU throughout the pandemic. Each case was considered in a personalised way, depending on the situation, so we could ensure that we were keeping people safe, but also connected. We also offered warm water for our visitors for handwashing outside the hospice – just a small way to support them while visiting friends or relatives at the end of life.
We have tested staff regularly to ensure that any asymptomatic infection is identified. We have actively encouraged vaccine take-up and the benefits of the vaccine to workforce, and worked with the local health system to ensure that our frontline staff could access the vaccine as early as possible.
Keeping everyone well
Much more than just looking after physical wellbeing, we’ve made every effort to ensure that staff and volunteers at St Christopher’s had vital outlets to vent, relax and find support during an incredibly difficult time.
Our retail arm usually brings in well over £1m of muchneeded net income per year, so things could have been rather bleak during the last year. But, rather than feel discouraged by the challenges ahead, we rallied:
- Increased our activity on eBay and Discogs, using our social media channels, website and regular supporter updates to drive traffic to our online stores, where we saw an 100% increase in online sales
- Used the time closed to do some refurbishment to our Addiscombe, Dulwich, Chatterton Road, Downham, Penge and St Paul’s Cray branches, ensuring the long-term sustainability and upkeep of our buildings, and utilising volunteers who were keen to help
- Developed the space and populated the very first St Christopher’s Library Shop, at our Streatham branch, which now houses over 3,500 books.
We never stopped taking donations, even when our shops had to close and our drop-off centres were busy throughout the year. In the 20 weeks we were open between April 2020 and March 2021, the generosity of our retail supporters was incredible and we managed to ensure the trading company was in good shape for the future. Since reopening on 12 April 2021, we’ve been extremely busy with recordbreaking sales and donations, and we give thanks to all our supporters staff and volunteers for their continued commitment.
We’ve had new volunteers join our team, we’ve launched a retail Instagram account (@stchrishospiceshop) and are looking forward to offering a more hybrid (online and in-store) retail experience moving forward.
Finding new ways to fundraise
Almost overnight we went from hosting events face-to-face to live-streaming. The team has been creative, versatile and, most importantly, resilient.
At St Christopher’s we’re well known for our events – whether that’s walking through gorgeous countryside in fancy dress for Fun Walk, taking on a sporting challenge or coming together to remember family and friends who have died. The rise of a global pandemic meant that we weren’t able to host these mass events but, undefeated, we did things a little differently.
For those looking to keep active in lockdown we launched Step Up for St Christopher’s which saw 157 people walking 32,896,511 steps and raising almost £5,000 for the hospice. To provide some light entertainment we teamed up with our new Ambassador, comedian Tom Allen, to host two livestreamed quiz nights on YouTube and Facebook with 1,500 people tuning in and raising over £22,000 across the two events.
Most importantly, we made sure people still had the opportunity to remember those they have lost which, due to restrictions on funerals, was more important than ever before. We held two livestreamed events – Remembering with Ribbons in the summer and Remembering with St Christopher’s in December – which shared the virtual lighting of our trees and invited people at home to light a candle with us in memory. Over 5,500 people watched these events and, combined, they raised over £100,000 for St Christopher’s.
Rallying for retail
Like all other high street shops, ours were closed for seven months over the last year. Staff were furloughed and 20% of our loyal volunteers decided they would not be in a position to carry on because they felt unsafe or needed to shield due to medical vulnerabilities.
Our retail arm usually brings in well over £1m of muchneeded net income per year, so things could have been rather bleak during the last year. But, rather than feel discouraged by the challenges ahead, we rallied:
- Increased our activity on eBay and Discogs, using our social media channels, website and regular supporter updates to drive traffic to our online stores, where we saw an 100% increase in online sales
- Used the time closed to do some refurbishment to our Addiscombe, Dulwich, Chatterton Road, Downham, Penge and St Paul’s Cray branches, ensuring the long-term sustainability and upkeep of our buildings, and utilising volunteers who were keen to help
- Developed the space and populated the very first St Christopher’s Library Shop, at our Streatham branch, which now houses over 3,500 books.
We never stopped taking donations, even when our shops had to close and our drop-off centres were busy throughout the year. In the 20 weeks we were open between April 2020 and March 2021, the generosity of our retail supporters was incredible and we managed to ensure the trading company was in good shape for the future. Since reopening on 12 April 2021, we’ve been extremely busy with recordbreaking sales and donations, and we give thanks to all our supporters staff and volunteers for their continued commitment.
We’ve had new volunteers join our team, we’ve launched a retail Instagram account (@stchrishospiceshop) and are looking forward to offering a more hybrid (online and in-store) retail experience moving forward.
Structure, governance and management
and Financial review
Structure, governance and management
The downloadable version of the St Christopher’s Annual Report and Accounts 2020/21 contains information:
- How we are governed
- Trustees’ duty to promote the success of the Charity – Section 172 statement
- Recruitment and appointment of new Trustees
- Public benefit
- Fundraising disclosure
- Pay policy for senior staff
- Disabled people
- Equality and diversity
- Gender pay gap
- Employee information
- Streamlined energy and carbon reporting (SECR)
- Principle risks and uncertainties
- Risks associated with the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the EU
Financial review
The downloadable version of the St Christopher’s Annual Report and Accounts 2020/21 contains information:
- Income
- Donations and gifts
- Legacies
- NHS contracts
- Income and performance of trading subsidaries
- Investment income
- Education, fees and other income
- Expenditure
- Staff costs
- Costs of generating funds
- Reserves policy and going concern
- Investment policy
- Statement of Board’s responsibilities
- Statement as to disclosure of information to auditors
- Independent auditor’s report to the Members and Trustees of St Christopher’s Hospice
- Financial statement and balance sheets
Along with the rest of the world, our work during the recovery from COVID-19 will be alongside continued uncertainty as to future stages of the pandemic.
However, we want to build on the momentum for change and the transformation that we’ve made in the last year.
Outlined below are our plans for what we will do in the second year of our three-year strategy for 2020-23.
We will commit to building on our learnings to ensure we continuously evaluate what we need to stop, start and continue. In the coming year, we will:
- Continue virtual consultations to reflect patient and family preferences
- Continue our work with care homes, including the addition of a new rehabilitation offer
- Build on the success of the Community Aid initiative and investigate emerging opportunities for our Community Action Team
- Ensure the health and wellbeing of our workforce with the implementation of a new strategy, flexible working policy and ongoing wellbeing initiatives
- Invest in IT to ensure that we’re technologically sound as an organisation and always looking out for new opportunities in this space
- Invest in innovation to address inequalities and gaps in provision, particularly for our bereavement services
- Work with the NHS to confirm our role and funding to support it going forward
- Make the most of the new St Christopher’s CARE and its state-of-the-art facilities to educate for the transformation of end of life care going forward.
A year of
transformation
I am excited about the opportunity to support the increased influence of St Christopher’s, positioning the hospice as a major player in national conversations about death, dying, palliative care and bereavement support.
I also see the potential for international influence with the role of St Christopher’s CARE to educate about and promote the hospice movement, as well as continue to be a leading voice in clinical innovation wand palliative education.
As one of the leading providers of palliative care, St Christopher’s is already punching well above its weight and has clearly thrived during the last year, despite extraordinary challenges. In the coming year, I am keen to ensure St Christopher’s has a sustainable recovery post-COVID-19 across all aspects of the organisation. At the heart of this is ensuring that we continue to have an outstanding delivery of care.
While we’re aware that this is not exhaustive of everyone that we need to thank, to all of the supporters mentioned on pages 60-61, please accept our gratitude.
I’d also like to extend a personal thank you to my predecessor, Morgan Jones, for 19 years of dedicated service to the St Christopher’s Board of Trustees, the last seven years as Chair.
Whether you’re a donor, a volunteer, a member of staff or someone in one of the communities we serve, we could not have survived, much less thrived, over the last year without you. Thank you for being part of the St Christopher’s journey so far and here’s to the future!
Neil Goulden
Chair of Trustees
More information
Thank you to all our supporters
We are hugely grateful to the individuals, corporate sponsors, trusts and all those who have so kindly chosen to remember St Christopher’s in their Wills. Thanks to you, we’ve been able to provide care and support to approximately 7,000 people in the last year. Thank you for making this possible.
Who’s who
For information about our Executive Team and to find out who’s on our Board of Trustees, just click on the button below.
Get involved
Could you help St Christopher’s make a difference? If you can give your time, money or expertise we’d love to hear from you.