Our merger with Peace Hospice Care

We have exciting news that, after a period of collaborating successfully on a number of projects since 2016, the Trustees of Rennie Grove and Peace Hospice Care are merging the two charities to provide extended and improved services for local patients with a life-limiting illness.

The new charity is called Rennie Grove Peace Hospice Care and will enable us to extend our reach and scope of services across both Herts and Bucks.

Our current phase of the merger integration started from 1 October 2022 and the combined organisation is registered with Companies House as Rennie Grove Peace Hospice Care.

By fully integrating, we aim to build efficiencies and to:

• Serve our communities with a wider range of services,
• Reach all sections of the local community, meeting changing needs, and
• Strengthen our combined voice to secure the resources to enable every local person receives the care they need.

We are currently liaising with the Charity Commission for their final approval, and the newly appointed Executive Board are now in place and continue to leading our merger integration plans.

The demand for palliative care is growing with more people living longer into older age with more complex health conditions. Local data shows that approximately 1% of the population with palliative care needs are dying each year in the areas we serve without receiving any palliative care support. Our vision is to provide every person in our area with access to care, support and advice where and when they need it.

Dr Jeremy Shindler, Chair of Peace Hospice Care, will be the Chair of Trustees of the new organisation and Stewart Marks has been appointed as the Chief Executive.  Jackie Tritton, currently Chief Executive Officer at Peace Hospice Care will become the Chief Clinical Officer and Professor Stephen Spiro, currently Chair of Trustees at Rennie Grove is retiring, having completed his tenure.

No, we are very clear that both organisations have patient care and services as the key driver for this merger. We are absolutely focused on ensuring that the merger will not distract us from continuing to deliver high quality services for local patients and families.

We will be building on the quality of our combined services and therefore have no plans to close services as a result of the merger. This is about being able to enhance and improve services and react to the changing needs of our communities to deliver the care they need.

We expect the high quality of care we currently provide to continue. Over time we aim to extend our reach to more patients including those we don’t or can’t fully serve at the moment.

Rennie Grove is the primary end of life care provider in South Bucks and our plans for developing more services for our Bucks communities will be boosted by the merger. For example, the new RPCS service just started in Bucks will benefit from the substantial service we and Peace provide in Herts. By delivering the service as one entity we will be able to bring efficiency to the service and reach more patients. It is a key aim post-merger to bring day services to Bucks patients.

Overall, this is an opportunity to bring together best practise from both organisations. The merger will provide the opportunity to extend our 24/7 model of hospice at home care into South West Herts. We will also look at extending our care for children. Herts patients will benefit from a more cohesive pathway and easy access to the in-patient unit at Peace Hospice Care. Our combined voice will be stronger in commissioning conversations which will help secure essential funding in Herts to provide co-ordinated care, regardless of geography.

As above, plus the merger will enable us to create additional hospice at home night teams, increasing overnight support for patients in Bucks too. Greater access for staff to clinical support and expertise at Peace Hospice Care will enhance the quality of care provided to all patients. Our combined voice will be stronger in commissioning conversations which will help secure essential funding in Bucks.

The organisation will continue to be based across our communities in Bucks and Herts. The locations we are in support the services we provide and give us flexibility to base our teams where they need to be close to patients. There may be some coming together in our support functions where there is an operational need.

Trustees of Peace and Rennie Grove will come together to form the new Board post-merger. The make-up of the new board is broadly even with both Rennie Grove and Peace equally represented.

Volunteers will continue to be a major and important part of what we do and how we do it. All volunteers at Peace and Rennie Grove will be asked to continue in their roles. We hope the enlarged charity will create even more opportunities for further volunteers to get involved across the whole organisation.

Fundraising will remain vital to support the delivery of our services and each organisation will continue to capitalise on the strong community support that its name, history and brand generates.

As usual, please do continue to donate using your normal channels at www.renniegrove.org or www.peacehospicecare.org.uk

Rennie Grove currently has 26 shops and Peace Hospice Care has 9. These will continue to be a vital source of income and will operate under their existing brands initially. Rennie Grove has a growing online presence, and this expertise will help Peace’s fledgling online operation.

We will post regular progress updates on our websites at www.peacehospicecare.org.uk and www.renniegrove.org.

We will also be providing regular updates for supporters in our monthly enews. If you don’t already receive this, you can sign up on our websites.

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