LOROS Funding-The Real Picture
Most Leicester residents are familiar with LOROS, the hospice charity that provides palliative and end-of-life care for adults with life-limiting illnesses. Its services include, inpatient hospice care, community nursing and home visits, day therapy and wellbeing support and bereavement services. These services are essential to those who are suffering, often in extreme pain, from life ending conditions and their families.
Although LOROS compliments and relieves pressure on NHS services, like most UK hospices, LOROS relies on a mixed funding model. It works tirelessly to obtain charitable donations which constitute most of its funding, this includes public donations, regular giving and legacies (wills), corporate partnerships and fundraising events. In addition, LOROS receives income from its retail charity shop outlets across the region and online sales. Lastly it receives additional funding from charitable trusts and foundations and one-off grants for specific services or projects. Together these typically amount to 70-80% of income.
It also receives some statutory funding via The National Health Service (NHS) and Local Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) which only covers a minority of its costs (20%).
Hospices like LOROS often face financial pressure because demand for palliative care is rising due to an ageing population, costs are increasing (staffing, energy, medical supplies) and NHS funding has not kept pace with need. LOROS receives only about one-fifth of its income from public sources despite its role in relieving pressures upon NHS services.
The 20% public funding LOROS receives is significantly lower than some UK hospices, which can receive up to 80% public funding, creating what’s often called a “postcode lottery”.
LOROS is essentially a charity first and a healthcare provider second in funding terms, it provides essential NHS-aligned care but depends heavily on public support to survive.
As a result, they must continuously fundraise to maintain services and any financial shortfalls can threaten service levels.
In 2025, LOROS received £908,253 from a UK government hospice fund however, this is capital funding only for use on buildings, heating and infrastructure and it cannot be used for nurses, doctors, or day-to-day care. Thus, this contribution does not solve the core funding problem.
LOROS spends money on care for 2,500 patients per year, its workforce of 450 staff and 1,200 volunteers. This funding supports inpatient hospice beds, community/home care, bereavement support, education & training and research in palliative care.
This financial model has a key systemic problem, in that LOROS delivers NHS-type services but is funded almost exclusively like a charity. This leads to reliance on public generosity, continuous financial instability and uneven service provision across the UK
In summary LOROS is heavily dependent on fundraising for most of its income (80%), NHS funding is limited (20%) and inconsistent and recent government funding helps buildings (capital expenditure) but not care delivery. Thus, the hospice is currently under real financial strain with real service impacts.
NHS/Government funding is limited and negotiated locally, it does not automatically increase with rising inflationary costs and more often than not lags behind inflation, so even if NHS funding stays stable the gap grows when costs rise. For LOROS costs rose dramatically, affected largely by staff wages (largest cost), energy bills (24/7 buildings) and National Insurance increases. Hospice costs are heavily staff-based, and it is difficult to cut costs without cutting care services themselves.
Across England 380 hospice beds are currently out of use, that’s up more than 25% in a year and crucially, it’s not because they aren’t needed, it’s because hospices can’t afford to staff them.
There isn’t a single national figure for the cost of hospice beds, however for LOROS with 31 inpatient beds it costs £8.2 million annually to run them. That is approximately £200,000–£300,000 per bed per year. The expense is due to a hospice requiring high-intensity, specialist care from twenty-four-hour, seven day a week specialist nurses, doctors (palliative care consultants), healthcare assistants, therapists (physiotherapists, counsellors, etc.) and medication & equipment.
Staffing is the biggest cost by far and beds without staff are simply unusable. hospices don’t usually close beds because of space, they close them because they can’t fund enough staff to deliver care safely.
Many hospices report beds shut specifically due to staffing costs and shortages. Nationally most hospices are in deficit, with an average running deficit of 75%. Cuts are widespread with nearly 6 in 10 hospices having already cut services and many planning to.
Hospices face a harsh choice, keep all beds open and risk unsafe staffing and burning through money faster, potential leading to insolvency, or reduce beds, meaning fewer patients get the help they need but safe care levels are maintained. So, they choose fewer beds, but safe care.
As a result, though there is an impact on the NHS as hospices save the NHS 1.5 million bed days/year at a cost of £800 million annually. When hospice beds close more patients go to hospitals, NHS costs increase and end-of-life care is often worse for patients and their families.
In conclusion this negative cycle keeps happening due to the structural deficits in the funding model, hospice care is labour-intensive and expensive, NHS funding is partial and inconsistent and charity income unpredictable. That leaves the key question; should hospice care be fully funded by the NHS like other healthcare services—or continue as a charity-supported model?
Sources:
1-https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/147574/html/
2-https://loros.co.uk/about-loros/news/2025/07/25/government-funding-announcement-how-it-impacts-loros
3-https://loros.co.uk/assets/downloads/quality-account-2024-2025.pdf
4-https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-04-08/debates/52A51520-6C04-4A4B-9337-E049EE12C6CC/HospiceFunding
