2024-03-31-accounts

Registered Charity 1182307 www.cc-sn.org

Trustees’ Annual Report & Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2024

Critical Care Support Network is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation, no. 1182307, first registered with the Charity Commission on 4 March 2019.

The charity is registered for Gift Aid with HM Revenue &Customs.

Contact details:

Critical Care Support Network The Bluecoat Upper Northgate Street CHESTER CH1 4EE

07955 848 955 Email: [e-mail] - Website: www.cc sn.org

Trustees of the Charity

Role Appointed Resigned Miles Negus-Fancey Chair 4 March 2019 Sue Dean Treasurer 4 March 2019 Quentin Underhill 4 March 2019 Aleta Doran 4 March 2019 31 March 2021 Deborah Graham 8 July 2019 31 August 2021 Elizabeth Hinds 3 September 2019

Bank

NatWest Bank, Eastgate Street Chester CH1 1LG

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Governing Document

Our Constitution is based on the Charity Commission’s model governing document for Charitable Incorporated Organisations, Association model, where the members have voting rights.

Charitable Objects – as defined in our Constitution:

To preserve and protect the health and well-being of current and former critical care patients, their family members and carers by providing and assisting in the provision of facilities and support services and through engaging with and assisting other individuals and organisations towards the same aims.

Trustee Selection Methods

There must be at least 3 Trustees. The maximum number is 12.

In accordance with the Constitution, Trustees are appointed or re-appointed for a term of 3 years by a resolution passed at a properly convened meeting of the Charity members.

In appointing trustees, due consideration is given to ensuring that the Trustees have, between them, the skills and experience necessary to manage the charity effectively and in accordance with charity law.

This year, no Trustees are due to stand for re-election.

Activities

The Trustees of Critical Care Support Network confirm that they have paid due regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit in deciding what activities the charity should undertake.

Our overriding intention is to help critical care patients and their families make the best possible recovery from their illness .

From April 2020 we have operated almost exclusively on Zoom and found that it has been surprisingly successful.

Our Trustees and Committee meetings have all moved to Zoom and will remain there – we have found it is extremely time effective.

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REVIEW OF THE YEAR Chair – Miles Negus-Fancey

Our group and our reputation have grown steadily throughout the last year.

We have continued to offer vital support to critical care patients and their families whilst in hospital and, especially, when they return home.

At a time when the NHS is not able to provide the social and community care needed for meaningful rehabilitation, we have bridged the gap with a successful year of patient dropins, family member drop-ins, professional exercise classes, professional yoga classes, relaxation sessions, social events, and arts and crafts as a route to mindfulness.

All of this is free of charge to our service users and easily accessible online. We feel we have developed systems that are manageable for anyone and that financial restrictions should not be a barrier to participation in our service structure.

As an early member of CC-SN, I found participation on all levels of the groups an important tool to regain confidence and life skills after ICU.

We remain a patient and family experience-lead charity offering peer-to-peer support. We have been through what our members and service users are going through. We can talk to them honestly about our own experience and we know the sort of support options they need to help them prepare for a future.

This year, attendance at each session has developed well, even when you consider the usual rotation of our service users. Paradoxically, we measure our success by this turnover. It means that many have returned to ‘normal’ life and the usual family, work and everyday routines. They have received the support that they personally felt they required, and we have been there for them when needed. And we will be here if they need us again.

We do not see any advantage of moving back to face-to-face meetings and will remain a national online service for the foreseeable future since so many of our members do not reside near Cheshire.

The sessions are well attended although they are not operating at the limit of their capacity. We would encourage any who joins us to try them out, they will remain free at the point of access. We understand how the financial burden of being critically ill can impact a family.

All the work undertaken by the committee and trustees for the charity is on a voluntary basis. We do pay for the professional services of those who run our various classes. Our trainers and instructors give a fantastic standard of service and an amazing level of commitment. We are extremely grateful to Joanne Ruffell and Gareth Tattum for the exercise sessions and Lynn Mooney for yoga.

Thank you to Sarah Graaskov and Amanda Tipper for all their work promoting our sessions, the 100 Club, Easy Fundraising, and our annual raffle. They tirelessly send emails out about all our activities.

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Beyond the weekly exercise sessions and drop-ins, we hold regular relaxation workshops. Post ICU anxiety and poor sleep hygiene is common amongst families who have had a critical care admission. We are further developing ideas to help combat stress, and also to reduce the sense of social isolation and loss of confidence. We feel that our varied programme of arts and crafts activities meets this goal, as do our social events like bingo and quiz nights. I would like to thank our artists who have run various sessions, Stuart Hughes for bingo, and everyone who helps with our quizzes.

We have produced bifold leaflets and posters that reflect the development of the group and the services we offer. Our thanks to Sarah and Stuart for their work on these and to Alderstone Solicitors for financing the printing costs. Thanks too to Phil Dean for his work updating our website in line with our new materials and for making it as user friendly as possible. We understand that our message needs to be short, sharp, and sweet. We can all remember how hard it is to concentrate on information after ICU. Phil has designed the perfect website.

Thanks to Amanda, our social media presence is growing. We have a steady stream of requests for public information packs from NHS Trusts right across the country. Running alongside our weekly virtual sessions, we also have an expanding forum on Facebook, which is monitored daily and is now 2 years old. Thanks to our dedicated admins, which includes Simon Newton-Smith, and Amanda and Sarah.

We have continued to work with the educational team at Countess of Chester Hospital. We strongly believe this can only benefit both patients and staff as they begin to understand the issues faced by critical care patients. Sue Dean and Tony Cotgreave take on the lion’s share of this.

I would also encourage members to get involved in research projects. Not only will your experience be of huge value, but you will also increase awareness of CC-SN.

Looking to the future

A significant challenge for us is funding. Sue has done an amazing job raising funds from grants and she is tirelessly looking at more ambitious funding options.

We are extremely grateful to all of those who have supported us throughout this year. It has enabled us to make a massive difference to the people we are able to support.

The details of donors and supporters are in our Financial Report.

The return of the Bartonfest music festival has also given us some welcome funding. We would like to thank the organisers for their wonderful generosity.

We are always looking for new ideas and our 100 Club is a brilliantly simple way for each of us to make a painless financial contribution to the charity. There is a prize draw each month with the chance to win one of three prizes. Amanda and Sue can give you more information.

Sarah and Sue have created a wonderful monthly newsletter and along with Amanda, they also form the administration team which shares tasks amongst those who would like to help us. This includes organising the annual raffle and any social or special workshops that we may choose to run.

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Another challenge is to encourage our expanding Facebook community to engage with all aspects of the charity. I do believe that 2 years on we are now getting much more ‘crosspollination’. Simon’s passion and regular posts on group activities has worn our Facebook followers down!

We hope to collaborate with more Health Authorities over this coming year. Our inclusion in the first national rehabilitation booklet can only be a good thing. Bradford Hospital’s excellent new ICU Support Hub website also has direct links to our website. We worked with them during the pandemic.

Our committee will work tirelessly to disseminate information, posters and leaflets for all of our sessions.

We will continue to develop relationships with critical care outreach teams across the country and offer our services as a crucial aid to recovery, once the person is home but also for family members whilst their loved one is in ICU.

We are proud of the dedication and time given by our trustees and committee members. They are all working together to plan for a busy and constructive future. Our trustees have again reviewed the development of the group, we can only see the need for our services continuing and we are therefore working to secure funding to develop further.

We would always consider any sensible proposal that our members would like to put forward. So, please get in touch if you have any ideas or suggestions.

Miles Negus-Fancey Chair

Financial Review Treasurer – Sue Dean

Details of any funds materially in Deficit - The Charity has no funds which are materially in deficit.

Policy on Reserves

The Charity’s policy on reserves is to generate and maintain a balance which is sufficient:

a. to preserve the financial viability of the Charity in the event that unforeseen and/or unavoidable circumstances precipitate a short-term fall in its income;

b. to enable the Charity, in the interests of meeting its objectives, to undertake from time to time the setting up of new and innovative projects on a pilot basis to demonstrate the viability and potential benefits of such activities as a precursor to securing the external funding necessary to maintain such projects on an on-going basis.

c. Currently the policy is to have £6000 in reserve.

• d. This policy is reviewed annually at the start of the financial year.

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Principal Sources of Funding and Outgoings Year Ending 31 March 2024

Income

• We would particularly like to thank everyone who has donated to the Group – a magnificent total of £9920. Special thanks to R J Peel and the Spread Eagles Caravan Club via Simon Newton-Smith who raised £800 for us with matched funding from Barclays Bank; Daxa Patel and HR Results Ltd for £500 and of course, supporting us once again, Bartonfest for £5013.

• We have received 2 grants this year - £500 from Magic Little Grants and £1000 from Anne, Duchess of Westminster, Charitable Trust. Our grateful thanks to both for their support.

Our members have been actively fundraising for us and we are very grateful for everyone’s support and generosity. We would particularly like to thank everyone who took part in or supported the following events:

• Chester Business Club’s Sponsored Walk – Stuart Hughes, Phil Dean, Mark & Julie Gray, Maria & Kevin Healy - raising a total of £1241

• Reclaiming our Days – our Chair, Miles, undertook to climb the equivalent of Snowden on the climbing wall at the Boardroom Climbing Centre in Deeside and raised £1271 – our thanks to Miles and everyone who sponsored him.

• Zoe Boyd entered the Great North Run and Raised £270 whilst Carla Smith climbed a volcano, Mount Liumuiga, and raised £176.

• A number of our members have very generously run birthday fundraisers for us on Facebook raising an excellent £535 for our funds.

Each Spring we hold our annual Prize Draw. This year we raised £953. Our thanks to everyone who bought or sold tickets and special thanks to Alderstone Solicitors for their donation of £300 of John Lewis vouchers for the first prize. All other prizes were also donated – our thanks to the donors.

This year we launched our 100 Club – the first draw was in July with 47 numbers – we ended the year in March with 68 members in the draw. 35% of the proceeds, £924, was given out as prizes and 65%, £1741, went to Group funds from 9 draws this financial year.

Our Money4|Nothing campaign grows slowly – there is still much scope for more income without any costs to the donors. We can arrange collection of printer cartridges – Alderstone Solicitors are collecting for us now which should give the campaign a boost!

Easyfundraising is a painless way of donating when you shop online – we do not see who has shopped or what has been bought. Since the start donations have totalled £586 – thanks to everyone who has participated but we have many more members who could sign up in these days of on-line shopping.

We continue to use CAF Donate as our Fundraising platform.

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Expenditure

Our total expenditure this year has been £16289. As always, our main expenditure has been a total of £14812 on all the members activities – Exercise, Yoga, Relaxation, Crafts. Of the remaining expenditure, £490 covered costs of prizes for members events, raffle tickets and a CCSN Banner, whilst £937 covered insurance, Zoom, website and emails, phone, stationery and postage.

Looking to the Future

Acknowledging the continuing pressures on the NHS, we believe the demand for our support will continue, whilst the competition for funds will remain strong. We therefore plan to continue our fundraising efforts whilst also continuing to apply for grants.

Remuneration of Trustees

All Trustees act in a voluntary capacity and receive no remuneration or other material benefits from their services to the Charity.

Out-of-pocket expenses necessarily and reasonably incurred by Trustees in promoting the purposes of the Charity are reimbursed at cost.

Statutory Statements on Liabilities

The Trustees declare that:

a. The charity has given no guarantees where potential liability under the guarantee is outstanding at the date of this statement (e.g.: any outstanding/ongoing contract or legal undertaking to buy or provide specific services);

b. The charity has no debt outstanding at the date of this statement which is owed by the CIO and which is secured by an express charge on any assets of the CIO.

Sue Dean Treasurer

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RK•lMs & Paynmnts forth• Fbwnclal Yw 314larQ4 CRITICAL CARE SUPPORT NETWORK CuirnrrtFwKW Ymr, LMtYMr TW RECEIPTS 6ABI Advano•Rrfw TALRKEiprs 1C01J 14•1 J PAYMENTS ¢tysts ￿G•n￿￿￿ F￿ 540 16.WT 1V12 Supwco¥ts 5ub4ol•l TOT•LPAYItENT8 1CIB• NET RECEIPT$4AYI#ENTS 1.724 Movemènts in Funds for thè Financial Year To 31.Mar.24 Cash A8aets Gbhat￿￿1 InHind Petty Cash 8an CurreMAcwunt -16.2f -18 1W3 ry¢r•dltQM(Ur￿A￿￿)pty nk Tolal¢tsh A¥Mts Allocation of Funds for the Flnanclal Year To 31-Mar-24 Cash Assets Cornpri$ing'. GuKr4IlUnwty￿d) Fund D4*r•ttyJ Funds rFthl I8.￿3 -16.2&9 R2- P4 ftT- ￿1(￿R￿￿?01￿1ll Tow Restr￿￿ Tt)W Fu￿J1 $14teM•rtof￿O•ts & U￿11t￿ u a¢ 314AAf-24 Taknl Pur Cuh￿l•ll 7,65) LWIHIè

R•cèlpts & Payrnenls Account for the Flnanclal Year End•d 314Aar-24 CRITICAL CARE SUPPORT NETWORK- 100 CLUB cG￿n Fw RECÉIPTS CharkafAèlr¢i TOTAL REt￿pT8 PAYNIENTS FurW•i 3.496 ToT￿PAYmENT8 NETRECEIPT8AYAIEMT8 Mov•ments In Fund• forthe Flnanclal Y•ar To 31-Mar-24 P¢tyc&h 8ank Curi¢ntAcGOunt 4ts Allocatlon of Funds for the Flnanclal Year To 31.Mar-24 Caih ABsets r44 CoMpri￿n9. Iuhtvlrfc￿l F￿￿1 Funds R4R- R4R- R& RY- T(thl F￿dI 526 ¢•thAs¥

CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examiner's report on the accounts Section A Independe￿t Examiner'5 Report R•portto th• tru•t•MI m•mbors of efl irfi CAL firLi ￿rtI //&23o? On •c¢ounts forth• y•ar •nd•d Charity no Irf any) Set out on ￿9•8 I report to the trtSStees on rny examination of tho 8CLxJunts of the atove charty Iyhe Trust'l for th ytrar ¢nde(I RMpon$lblllt1￿ •ftd As th• tharity trustees, you are responsit4e lor the preparation ol the basts of rèport accounts in accordan￿ %wth the Charities Act 2011 Act'i. l Mport in r•$F4cl of my ex8min8bon of the Trust's accounts carried out under Seth'on 145 ofthe 2011 Ad and in caffwng out my examination. I have lollowe(l all the applicable Directions given by the Charrty Comm¥ssKJn under section 1451SXbl ol the Act. Indgpgndent ffhe chanty's gross income exceeded £250.000 and l am qualrfied to examinerfs statement undsrt8k8 thè èx8min8tth by bèing 8 qUaIrf￿ member of lingert r¢ame ol applicable listed bodyll. D￿&t8 I l if not applK8ble. I have cOmp￿ed my examinats'on. I confimi that no matèrial matters have come to rny attentson (other than th81 disdo￿d bdow") in connection wrth th¢ gx¥min$tion which givès mè cause to believe th8t in, any material rèsp&a.: the aceounling records We￿ not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act,. or the ac£ounts did not accord wth the ac￿ntIng meords., or the ac£ounts did not comply with th? applicablts requirements oonesming the lom) and content ol ￿COuntS set oui in the Charities (Accounts and Rewrtsl Regulations 2008 other than any requiremnt that the acwunts give a'true and fairf Vy￿ which is not • matter )nsdered as part ol an independent examiriatitsn. I have no concems and have come a£rosB no other m8ttèrs in ¢onnection wrtl) th? exarnin$t￿n to whi¢h attent)n slould té drawn in this report in orderio enabse a proper understanding of the accounts to bo r•8chad. ' Please delete the ¥Yords in the brnc8tsrflh8ydo not 8ppty. Slgned.. Dat•.. 2¢ N•me'. J/£rU- Relèvant protss$ional quallficatlonlsl or body Ilf any): fzsA. IER October 2018 10

Notes to the Accounts a) Accounting Policies The financial statements have been prepa￿d in accordan￿ with the Charities Act 2011 Section 133, using the Receipts and Payments basis available to small charities. and the charity's own Simple Accounts Spreadsheet. b) Reimbursement of Out-of-Pocket Expenses Out-of-pocket expenses incurred necessarily, reasonably and incidentally in the course the charity's activities are reimbursed at cost. No Trustees retsived any reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses in the financial year. c) Salaries & Professional Fees No trustee receives any payments for the serVi￿S they provide to the charity. In the current financial year the charity employed no staff. d) Exercise and Yoga c18sses and similar a￿ taken by qualified trainers who are paid a session fee, they are not employed by the Charity. e) Fixed Assets The charity has not purchased or disposed of any fixed assets in the current financial year., Q Creditors & Debtors Cheques for goods or service5 purchased, or invol￿$ for goods or ServI￿S delivered, which are issued prior to the end of the financial year but not appearing in the end of financial year bank statement are reported as outstanding creditors or debtors respectively. g) Rounding Discrepancies All amounts are recorded to the penny, but in these accounts are shown as digitally rounded to the nearest pound. This can occasionally result in a total apparently not being the sum of its constttuent amounts. All individual amounts, and their totals, are nevertheless correct. Approval of the Board of Trustees The TrLtstees declar8 that they approved the above Annual Report and Statement of Financial Activity. Signed on behalf of the Trustees Miles Negus-Fanc Chair Susan Dean Treasurer Date Date lo ) LLI