Island Echo always welcomes letters to the editor, which may of course not reflect the views of the publication and its staff.
Letter – 25th September 2025
“As you know I am the new Reform UK Councillor for Central Rural Ward, and I also sit on the Adult Social Care, Public Health and Housing Needs Committee.
“At the Committee meeting on 11th of September it was attended by senior members of staff from the Mountbatten Hospice who reported on their struggle to try and get their NHS funding reinstated. This was truly heart-breaking to hear and many of us in this meeting were almost in tears to learn how Islanders at the end of their life journey face having to spend their precious final days not in the wonderful sanctuary of our amazing Hospice but on a hospital ward or struggling to manage in their own home reliant on family and friends who will have to deal with these traumatic circumstances with much reduced professional support. This is because, we learnt at the meeting, about 85% of the Hospice work is helping people in their own homes and in the community and they will suffer too without this funding. This is particularly crucial as the Island does not have any Macmillan nurses or services. The Hospice has also provided valuable support to care homes.
Article continues below this advertisement “As you know, this all comes at very little cost to the public purse as two thirds of the funding is from fundraising from the fantastic efforts and generosity of Islanders and other valued supporters. It is just one third that came from NHS funds which this government has ended, and the Hospice is now desperately trying to get this reinstated.
“Although the funding was reinstated for this year, future funding as from April 2026 is still unsecured and meetings are still taking place to try and resolve this. The amazing Hospice staff will very shortly be in the position of having to think about their own job security in order to guarantee the financial futures of themselves and their families. So, there is the very real threat that even if the funding is reinstated it may be too late to keep many of the staff in place and there will then be a staffing crisis, so the end-of-life patients will suffer even more. The staff will suffer too, having to sacrifice jobs that they love and helping patients that they adore in their final days.
“At the meeting I observed that the government had given an emergency grant of £996,000 to the Hospice but unfortunately it was ringfenced for ‘capital projects’ and could not be used for day to day running costs. I suggested that another emergency grant of £1.4 million, this time funding that can be spent on anything, should be requested from the government. This is the amount that the government has cut from the Hospice budget and to get this emergency grant will secure funding for a whole year until April 2027.
“In the meantime, hopefully, the funding will be reinstated. I was informed that the MP would have to be involved in order to secure this emergency grant.
“As your Party is in government, you should be able to use your influence to get this funding and, in fact, I have read your pledge at the time the funding crisis was announced that you would do everything you could to resolve this. I do not know what efforts you have made thus far, but the Hospice now is at crisis point where it desperately needs this emergency grant of £1.4 million. This sounds like a lot of money but for the outstanding services provided and when compared to the billions of new funding that your Party has stated they have added to the NHS budget, this is a tiny amount.
Article continues below this advertisement “We have also been told that lots of money has and will be saved by the reorganisation of the NHS and the abolition of NHS England, so why the cuts to our Hospice funding? We were also promised improvements to our NHS, not cuts, by this government. We only have the one Hospice on the Island that is for adults and for children in these tragic circumstances as well. We do not have the luxury of our loved ones just going to a nearby Hospice, so a special case must be made by you to secure this £1.4 million emergency grant.
“The Hospice is in your Constituency as is my Ward, Central Rural, and I know that I have my Residents and the rest of the Island behind me when I ask you to now urgently secure this emergency grant, to be spent as the Hospice sees fit.
“By doing this you will make it possible for Islanders, sadly at the end of their lives, to live their last precious days under the care of the amazing staff of our incredible Hospice. It will also secure all of the other desperately needed services that the Hospice provides for the Island.
“After giving help to so many over the years the Hospice now needs help itself. Over to you.”
Councillor Caroline Gladwin
Thank you Reform, for standing up and doing something, applying pressure to that idiot quigley, good job!
As for any one in the labour party keeping a promise, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
All they will do is destroy everything, that is their mission.
More Reform candidates please in the up coming May elections, yes, the democratic right we have been denied this year, while they plot against us in the form of a mayor.
I have only admiration for the work of the hospice and for the people who fundraise for it and I hope that the NHS will be able to find funds to assist in future years. I should, however, be interested to hear what Ms Gladwin has to say about Reform policy with regard to the NHS. As I understand it, the central plank of their health policy is based on care being funded by insurance paid for by individuals and for Government funding for the NHS to stop. Reform calling, therefore, for public funds from the NHS to fund the Mountbatten seems to reek of hypocrisy. Perhaps Ms Gladwin could explain how these two positions can be reconciled?
I’m amazed that a Reform councillor sees no irony is calling for NHS funding to be reinstated (which doesn’t mean I don’t applaud the principle).
Talk about hipacritical ….
A reform councilor asking a labour government to step in with more public money.. is like badenough saying the labour government should sort out the ferries…
Both expecting a a labour government to do what is totally against their own party’s policies.
..
It’s disgusting that nobody in this government has the forsite to look before they leap, they carry on their agendas trampling over us day by day without a thought in the world about us, typical of the labour government.