St Clare's Hospice at Maldon will need to find an extra £35,000 a year on top of its £75,000 annual budget to finance a new care strategy which came into place last week.

The hospice is reimbursing Chelmsford's Farleigh Hospice for any residential care provided for patients from the Maldon district and for other specialist services provided.

The extra cash will mean a stepping up of fund-raising activities.

As part of the new strategy the hospice shop in Maldon is being relaunched as the St Clare's Hospice shop.

"The new strategy has been agreed by the trustees of St Clare's and Farleigh as a logical and positive step forward in providing care services, and reinforces our close links with Farleigh," said St Clare's chairman, Chris Thorby.

He added: "It gives St Clare's the responsibility for providing a complete care package instead of sharing some of that responsibility with Farleigh, as in the past.

''And it allows Farleigh to concentrate its fund-raising in the rest of mid-Essex."

Work is also due to start on an extension at St Clare's, based near the Bentalls Complex, Heybridge. to provide better counselling facilities, a new reception area and a new fund-raising centre.

St Clare's will continue to provide day care at Heybridge on three days a week. During 1998 a total of 45 patients attended on a total of 906 occasions. Up to 10 patients a day are looked after.

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