A hospice caring for people with cancer has warned the controversial new health lottery could be a threat to its services.

St Raphael’s Hospice, in North Cheam, said health organisations could miss out on funding if residents chose to play the national health lottery as their way of giving to good causes.

The hospice is reliant on more than £120,000 a year, generated by its own fundraising lottery, but fears this income could be seriously affected by people playing the new one instead.

Keith Witham, director of fundraising at the hospice, said its lottery players had already asked about whether they should switch to the new lottery.

He said: “Our weekly hospice lottery is an essential source of income, raising a significant amount of the money we need each year to provide our free specialist care services for some 900 people a year.

“We are extremely concerned, this new national health lottery, which is being run commercially, could divert money away from local hospice care, which is the last thing we need in this already difficult economic climate.”

The health lottery has already come under fire for giving only 20p of each £1 spent on tickets to charity, just a fraction above the minimum amount required by law.

In comparison the national lottery gives 28 per cent to good causes. For every £1 received by St Raphael’s Hospice lottery, 50p will go to charity.

St Raphael’s relies on public donation and fundraising, including its lottery, for 75 per cent of its funding, with 25 per cent coming from the NHS.

According to the health lottery, money raised will not go towards services covered by existing NHS funding, but “to health-related good causes important to communities” thorughout the UK.

Mr Witham said: “It is for this reason that we are urging people who care about their local hospice to say ‘No’ to the health lottery.”

The St Raphael’s No to the Health Lottery campaign is being supported by national charity for hospice care, Help the Hospices.