Bank loss hospice to receive cash

A Hampshire children's hospice which invested £5.7m in an Icelandic bank which later collapsed is to receive a 20% payment from its administrators.

The future of some of Naomi House's services has been uncertain since Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander went into administration in October.

Its cash crisis deepened after the government refused to compensate it.

The administrators said the payment would be made in July, with others expected to follow.

The hospice welcomed the news but hospice chair Professor Khalid Aziz said the money was insufficient to ensure the autumn opening of the charity's new £12m hospice, Jacksplace.

It was built to provide palliative care and support to young people who have outgrown facilities at Naomi House.

Financial pressures

Prof Aziz said: "It will cost £4.5m to run the charity once Jacksplace is fully open, and we simply do not have the financial resources to consider it at the moment.

"The only way we can realise our ambitions to provide children and teenagers with a full hospice service is the return of the whole £5.7m currently at risk."

"Our children rely on the support of the hospice and any threat to the services they provide is unthinkable to families like ours"

He also said the dividend payment would not be enough to reinstate the charity's community outreach home service for families, which was suspended in December.

The government made its decision despite a Treasury select committee recommending charities should be compensated.

Naomi House looks after terminally-ill children from Hampshire, Berkshire, Dorset, the Isle of Wight, Surrey, West Sussex and Wiltshire.

Beverley Campbell, a mother who visits the hospice with her daughter, welcomed the announcement that the dividend would be paid.

She said: "This is really good news for families.

"Our children, like Bonnie, rely on the support of the hospice and any threat to the services they provide is unthinkable to families like ours."

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Naomi House
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