haysmacintyre is pleased to partner with Hospice UK for the third year in producing the Hospice Accounts Report. This year’s report uses information taken from the statutory accounts of 194 independent charitable hospices in the UK, plus two national charities, Marie Curie and Sue Ryder. It shows a sector with total income of £1.4 billion per year.
This report covers the first year that most hospices have adopted the new accounting guidance: Charities Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP). This has meant new disclosures, such as the costs of key management personnel, as well as new terminology and the reallocation of expenditure categories. Overall, this change has been managed well by hospices and we have noted a number who have also taken the opportunity to refresh their report and accounts to better tell the story of the hospice to its supporters.
Every year in the UK, hospices provide vital care to over 200,000 people with terminal or life-limiting illnesses, as well as providing support for many of their loved ones. Hospice care is free for everyone, and is provided for however long it is needed, which could be days, weeks or even months.
This care is funded by a range of types of income, with 73% coming from local community fundraising, donations, legacies, corporate supporters and trading activities. This level of local community support is vital to the sector.
Government funding differs greatly by area and by individual hospice. Some have agreements in place for multi-year funding, but many are reliant on year by year decisions on funding levels. There is also a significant difference in government funding levels for adults and children’s hospices. In 2016, the government funded 32% of the expenditure incurred by adult hospices in the UK, and 15% of the expenditure incurred by children’s hospices.
Over the years, the findings from the Hospice Accounts Report have been quoted in Parliament, the media and numerous publications and presentations. We hope that you find it useful, both to inform debate and to help local hospice staff and trustee boards to benchmark their own figures against similar organisations.
This report brings together the accounts of charitable hospices in the UK. These hospices are primarily local charities that are governed by voluntary trustees. The purpose of the report is to:
demonstrate the size and operation of hospice care in the UK
identify and highlight changes over time in the overall operation of these hospices
identify differences between the various sizes of hospice
provide hospices with critical figures and benchmarks against which to compare their own accounts.
Scope
This report is based upon the audited accounts of 196 charitable hospices for the financial year ending any time between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2016. For the majority of hospices, this means the accounts for the year ended 31 March 2016. This was the first year in which most of these hospices prepared their financial statements under the Charities Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) FRS 102.
