Hospices: Funding

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, there has truly been a depositum of wisdom in this short debate, illustrating an area of concern that we all share in and indicating a degree of urgency by which we should all be impressed. I offer the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, my true thanks for his opening remarks and daring to set up this debate in a philosophical way; he has given us a framework within which we can test our ideas out.

My noble friend Lady Pitkeathley reminded us of the practical applications of good hospice care and the plight of hospices at this present moment. In a sense, I have less to contribute to a debate such as this than the experts who have already spoken, except that I do come across hospices. My noble friend and I have, I think, visited the same people—Members of this House—in hospices.

I am shocked to see from the briefings that we are in this situation of financial difficulty in an area of life where the good being done is so obvious that it is hard to understand why people do not back it. In the charitable sector, endless efforts go on in little shops, on the streets and so on, but what about the one-third and two-thirds?

Similarly, the supreme irony of the fact that we are soon to debate assisted dying—I make no comments about that debate now; there will be time for that—is that it is being put forward as wanting to offer options to people at the end of their lives. Hospice care is an option at the end of people’s lives. It is tried and tested, with proven in-person experience from the offering of one testimony after another. Is it not ironic that we cannot see the two together? We must stiffen our resolve, influence all we can and stand up for investing in hospices as a responsible way of dealing with people at the end of their lives. We must then let the other debate happen, with that already a commitment on our part.