Hospice 'facing rising debts'

Report said hospice had been hit by problems

The Northern Ireland Hospice could be facing a budget deficit of almost three quarters of a million pounds this year.

An interim annual report on the charity which provides care for children with life limiting illnesses was published on Wednesday.

Acting chief executive of the hospice Pat Killen published the report which said it was facing debts of £700,000 by the end of the current financial year.

The hospice has an annual turnover of more than £6m, and employs 350 people.

'Hospice review needed'

Mr Killen said a review was needed of the organisation, which has been blighted by problems over the past year.

Pat Killen: "A new management structure needs to be put in place"

Some of the problems have surrounded the suspension and then sacking of the hospice's former administrative director Tom Hill.

Mr Hill was dismissed in May, seven months after being suspended from his post in a bitter row with the hospice management.

Others problems centred on concerns over how the hospice was being run.

On 31 July the management team of the hospice resigned.

An acting management team is now running the hospice until the charity's annual general meeting in October, at which a new management team can be elected.

The problems have come during the year when one of the charity's most ambitious projects - Northern Ireland's first children's hospice - is being built in Newtownabbey, County Antrim.

'Management structure'

Speaking at the launch of the charity's annual report at the north Belfast on Wednesday, acting chief executive, Pat Killen said the whole organisation needed to be reviewed and a new management needed to be appointed.

He said: "A chief executive needs to be appointed within the organisation immediately and then the structure should be set in place under the chief executive.

"This is a very big business and it needs to be run as a business."