Two hospice charities in Teesside have announced that they plan to merge in order to ensure both organisations’ “long-term sustainability” amid growing pressures on the end-of-life care sector.
Teesside Hospice and Butterwick Hospice are neighbouring hospices which support a total of over 6,700 people across the Tees Valley and County Durham.
Both hospices have recently been met with an “increasing demand for care” and agreed to merge after a “lengthy decision process”.
Mike Thornicroft, chief executive of Teesside Hospice, said: “At Teesside Hospice we have experienced a significant increase in demand for our services across the last few years and we have grown to meet this demand.
“Year-on-year we have seen increases in referrals and patient contacts across all our services, and we have taken steps to ensure we can meet the needs of this growing community without compromising our standards.
“But we’re not done, and our mission is to ensure everyone across the region has access to the care they need and deserve.
“Nationally, one-in-three people are still dying without the care they need at the end of life – we want to change that and together, through this collaboration, we will be stronger and better placed to drive this growth.”
Butterwick Hospice CEO Edward Gorringe said his organisation was “supporting a steadily increasing number of patients and their families”.
“We now want to develop our services further and faster, ensuring that we are able to respond to changing needs and demands over the coming years,” he said.
“We believe that this can be best achieved by working with others and are excited by the potential offered by this collaboration with Teesside Hospice.”
In its most recently filed accounts, Teesside Hospice reported an annual income of £6m against an annual expenditure of £6.1m, and employed 149 people on average in the year to March 2025.
Meanwhile, Butterwick Hospice reported an annual income of £3.6m against an annual expenditure of £4.7m and employed 102 people on average in 2024-25.
