“I am appalled that the Integrated Care Board has decided to pull money from the Island to support Hampshire” – that’s the reaction from Isle of Wight East MP Joe Robertson following the news that Mountbatten is to lose over £1.4million in NHS funding.
The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board (ICB) is cutting 40% of its annual funding to the hospice charity, with £600,000 to be withdrawn from this autumn and the remainder phased out by 2026/27. The reallocated funds will go to hospices in Hampshire, despite the Isle of Wight’s older and frailer population.
Joe Robertson, Member of Parliament for the Isle of Wight, has said:
“I have written demanding an urgent meeting so that the ICB can explain why they think it’s OK to inflict savage cuts to hospice services here, where the population is older, poorer and with higher frailty, and redistribute the money to places with less substantial need on the mainland.
“I have already met with the hospice management in person and will fight this decision which is not a done deal yet.”
Mountbatten leadership say the decision was made without consultation. Incoming CEO Becky McGregor called the move ‘hugely disappointing’, while Chair of Trustees Sir Ian Cheshire said the charity is demanding the ICB reconsider what he described as an ‘appalling decision’.
The hospice currently receives one third of its income from the ICB, with the rest raised through donations, fundraising and retail. The loss of NHS funding threatens to reduce services and result in staff redundancies.
Outgoing CEO Nigel Hartley MBE warned that hospice care is ‘dying’ and described the cuts as a ‘devastating loss’ for patients and families on the Isle of Wight.
Mountbatten is urging residents to contact NHS commissioners and local representatives in a bid to reverse the decision.
This is the sort of thing we’ll have to get used to when we have a mainland based mayor. Why our current council cannot see the obvious is a worry for the Island. Any control from the mainland will always see us coming off second in the priorities queue!
You are 100% Right, there cannot be a single Island resident that did not know this would happen!
There is a concerted move to have the affairs of the Island dealt with from the mainland, as such the mainland will ALLWAYS drain the life out of the Island. Perhaps the mainland would like to pay for all the needs of the Island from road resurfacing to rejuvenation of infrastructure! The list goes on, No it will be take take take until they destroy the Island once and for all.
This has to stop!
This is very disturbing. Any of us, at any age, may need hospice care.
Ironically, the ICB’s document, ‘Our Renewed Ambition’, opens with the sentence, “The NHS across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight has an ambition for the future where local people are better supported to live healthier lives for longer and, when they do become ill, have better access to the right care, in the right place, at the right time.”
The second sentence says, “We want to shift towards providing more proactive and preventative care and support for local people that is person and community-centred.”
Clearly these ambitions are not being extended to the Isle of Wight community.
We should all follow the advice from Mountbatten and contact NHS commissioners.
Yes, what you have highlighted is the usual utterly meaningless tosh that spouts from such organisations. In my view, it is a form of criminality peddled by all such organisations supposedly working on our behalf.
Why do you think they are pushing the euthanasia bill?
So true, they cannot afford to pay the winter fuel
allowance now, plus they keep extending the state
pension age.
De-populating = Net Zero