The crucial funding programme for Cranford Hospice has been given a major boost through the formation of a six-person "working team". Its goal will be to meet the annual cost of running the Hastings facility.
Cranford general manager Helen Blaxland described the formation of the independent Cranford Foundation Trust as a "significant step" in ensuring the hospice's financial viability going into the future.
"The focused objective is to attract large scale investment funds for the hospice," she said. It has a fundraising target of $2.1 million per year to keep it fully operational.
The driving force behind setting up the independent trust had been Cranford Hospice patron John Buck.
"Over the next thirty to forty years the demand for palliative care in Hawke's Bay will at least double," Mr Buck said. "These numbers will require Cranford to substantially increase its infrastructure - in the past year the hospice has provided care for almost seven hundred people throughout Hawke's Bay."