Due to a decline in NHS funding, “we are going to have to cut services in the next 18 months,” Nigel Hartley, chief executive of Mountbatten, has warned.

The charity, which runs hospices on the Island and in Southampton, and which is the largest provider of hospice care in Hampshire, will launch a public consultation this autumn.

Mountbatten, which also provides psychology and bereavement counselling and 24/7 specialist palliative care at home, both on the Island and across large parts of Hampshire, will ask residents of the two counties what services are most important to them.

Mountbatten’s AGM, was held on Thursday, July 25. Attendees heard the number of people being given specialist palliative care by Mountbatten has risen by 250 per cent on the Island in five years and, over the same period, by 90 per cent across Hampshire.

Two thirds of Mountbatten’s funding comes from the community, which Nigel said is ‘alive and well’. A third comes via the NHS organisation responsible for planning health services – the Integrated Care Board for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (ICB).

While Mountbatten’s costs have gone up by eight to ten per cent in the last year, the NHS has uplifted its contribution by just 0.6 per cent.

Thanking fundraisers and supporters across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Nigel said he is proud of Mountbatten’s staff and volunteers, who are delivering high quality care during unprecedented times.

Mountbatten’s Chair of Trustees, Sir Ian Cheshire, added: “We will fight over the NHS funding. We are not going to accept this. We are not going to sit back and wait for it.”