Acorns Children's Hospice needs £2m - or will go bust

Dec 27 2008 EXCLUSIVE by Nick McCarthy

A MIDLANDS children’s charity that was handed a free sponsorship deal by Aston Villa will go bust if it doesn’t find £2 million in three months.

The stark warning came today from the man in charge of the Acorns Children’s Hospice that cares for children with life-limiting illnesses across the Midlands.

Chief executive David Strudley said Acorns was facing the worst financial crisis in its 25-year history.

Funding from almost every avenue has “fallen of a cliff” just months after the charity was given free shirt sponsorship by Aston Villa.

There has been a treble whammy with the credit crunch affecting funds, low pay offers from Midland Primary Care Trusts and anecdotal evidence that the public thinks the ‘Villa-backed’ charity needs less support.

The “absolutely wonderful” partnership with the Premiership club has given them publicity and exposure but was never meant to bring direct cash.

Acorns still needs to raise £7.5 million every year just to run the day-to-dayservices for 600 children and their families at three hospices in Birmingham, Walsall and Worcester.

The funding levels from local health care trusts should also have doubled after the government ruled that statutory funding should be increased.

Health trust money currently covers just 15 per cent of the cost of caring for the children.

Only four out of 17 PCTs in the Midlands have so far agreed to double that amount to 30 per cent after a year of negotiations.

Acorns has been talking to all 17 to get better deals, but so far only Solihull, Dudley, Walsall and Coventry have handed over the extra money.

David said: “Funding has just suddenly fallen of the cliff. The wonderful people of the West Midlands continue to support us in the ways that they always have, but that has no translated into the sums of money that we desperately need to survive.