CEO Report for end of financial year 2019
We have now completed our 27th year of providing palliative care services across our communities. The past 12 months have been a time of change, challenge and achievement for all facets of our organisation. We continue to experience growth in demand for our range of inpatient and community based services and have spent a large amount of the year best positioning our resources to meet these expectations.
As always, our highly skilled and and committed staff teams have delivered care in ways that best work for patients and families in their chosen care settings. This work is often complex and taxing along with challenging dynamics of where it is provided. I am continually impressed by what our people achieve to help those who pass through our care, so they can live their lives in ways that are important meaningful to them.
As now seems to be the way of charity healthcare providers, managing our finances and ensuring the best spend of our income is a constant challenge in our organisation. We are grateful for the strong relationships with key funders and corporate supporters that we partner with in our communities. Our retail group has grown to five shops with our presence expanded to Waitara and this combined net income continues to underpin fundraising programmes from our communities. Likewise we have received near record volumes of donations showing how we are valued by our supporters.
Over the past twelve months our marvelous and energetic volunteer teams have given us well over one hundred thousand hours of their time into all parts of our organisation. This community support is critical to us continuing our work of providing services at no charge to anyone anywhere anytime. Our annual board thank you dinner for volunteers was attended by 370 people at a new venue with a new format which provided an excellent opportunity to publicly acknowledge the work of so many of our long term supporters.
I would like to acknowledge the Senior Leadership Team and their energy, enthusiasm and vision that contributes to keeping our organisation focused on our future directions while supporting their teams to provide levels of excellent service in the here and now. Likewise I am very grateful for our two volunteer boards who generously give their expertise in support of my role and championing our work in the community. Our senior team and boards have carried out and overseen a wide range of new developments across our organisation in the past year that will continue to position us well for future challenges.
We also acknowledge the support we receive and the leadership that is provided across our sector by Hospice New Zealand.
In closing I would like to acknowledge our grateful appreciation to the thousands of people who have donated to us at funerals, purchased goods through our HospiceShops, organised and supported fundraising events, purchased items of equipment for us, donated goods to our HospiceShops and given us their volunteer time. These community connections are so vital to our future and reinforce our position as the most highly respected and well supported charity healthcare provider in Taranaki.
Paul Lamb, Chief Executive