Hampton hospice appeal after temporary closure amid coronavirus

Shooting Star Children’s Hospice has two sites, one in Hampton, Richmond, and one in Guildford, Surrey.

Chief Executive Nigel Harding explained that he chose to temporarily close the London site because lots of families were self-isolating and not using the facilities.

“Our children are the most vulnerable, people were isolating in their own homes,” he said.

“So therefore the requirement for our inpatient beds dropped. So I made the decision at that time to close Shooting Star for the time being, and open up all the beds down in Christopher’s, Guildford, because we have nine beds here.

“We’ve got all of those beds open at this time for end of life and emergency situations.”

Nigel harding, CEO

He said they chose to close the Hampton site because “London is at this moment the epicentre of coronavirus.

“We thought it would be really useful to be able to be slightly outside of London, whilst offering those families we were supporting in the London boroughs still that same support, even at a distance.”

The pandemic has hit the small charity’s finances hard because it relies on fundraising for 90 per cent of its funding.

“It costs us around about £11m a year to run, and we get about £1m from the NHS to support the work that we do,” said Mr Harding

“Suddenly, Covid hit us and the shutdown hit us. That meant a number of things for us. Firstly it meant – where were we going to get the £10m from? We couldn’t do things like the London Marathon, we didn’t know where the money was coming from.”

The charity quickly set about launching an emergency appeal, and has so far raised £450,000 – but it isn’t out of the woods yet.

“At this moment in time we have availed ourselves of all the government schemes. We have furloughed a lot of the back-office staff, we also received some good money from the government in terms of the support they were giving in general to charities,” said Mr Harding.

“We’re fine for the next three months, and because of the emergency appeal we’re probably looking okay towards the next five or maybe even six months, depending on what happens. But beyond that the future is really unknown for us.”

Shooting Star is currently predicting a shortfall of at least £3m for the next 12 months.

“It means that we are really going to have to look to the future and how we deliver our care differently, because the one thing we are sure of is that social isolation is going to be with us in some shape or form for the foreseeable future until a vaccine is developed,” he said.

“We are hoping that the government will give us a little bit more money to see us through, but there is no certainty there so the only people we can rely on, quite honestly, are our community.”

In the meantime, the hospice is operating a telephone support line for all of its families as well as hosting virtual youth club meetings.

Speaking about the importance of the charity’s work, Mr Harding added: “If you have a life-limited child in your family, it’s 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because a lot of these children have incredibly complex needs. A lot of them could be on ventilators, some have limited mobility. So, ordinarily, we were able to offer respite breaks for families.

“We would look after the children, give them fantastic one to one sometimes even two to one care in the hospice, and would allow the parents to be able to go to the cinema, to go to the pub, go out for a meal or even just spend time with the siblings of the child that we were looking after. And that’s absolutely vital for them.

“But the key part of our work is end of life care. That is massively important for children that are coming to the end of their lives.”

Mr Harding said many parents are “desperate” and have “nowhere else to turn”, until they find out about Shooting Star.

On Friday (May 1) Hampton North ward councillors Geoffrey Samuel and Kate Howard also leant their support to the charity’s campaign.

In a video posted on Richmond Council’s YouTube page, cllr Samuel’s warned “there is, unbelievably, a genuine danger that this wonderful hospice could close.

“Please give to save this wonderful hospice.”

Appealing to residents, Mr Harding added: “Hospices are not just about the buildings. They are about the services we can give, and we are still supporting everybody in the London boroughs.

“As soon as humanly possible we will be reopening Shooting Star House. But in the meantime we need your help, we still need the community to support us.”