Hospice Funding

Bob Seely Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sally-Ann Hart]

The hon. Gentleman raises a valuable point, which I am sure the Minister will take onboard.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her excellent speech, and for securing this important debate. She comes to the crux of the matter. I am really interested to hear from the Minister, because our Mountbatten Isle of Wight hospice in Newport is much loved, and one of the core institutions on the Island. Its inflation costs in the last two years have been way above what it has been getting from the ICB.

Our ICB is in special measures. We had two meetings with the ICB last week, and it was very unclear about some of its long-term plans and how it is using its funding. Does she agree that we need to ensure that our ICBs are properly managed and run? I am delighted that she has a great ICB. For us, it is a little more complicated. We need to ensure that funding goes through to hospices, so that when there is a state element of funding—one can debate the important nature of fundraising—the NHS money gets through. Right now, it does not seem to be doing so.

[Sally-Ann Hart]

It is unfortunate that your ICB is not very good at all—

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will not take up too much of your time.

I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) and for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for organising and securing this very important debate; I am hugely grateful that they have done so. It is clear from the amount of people who have taken part in the debate that hospices are held in great affection not only in our hearts, but in the hearts of our constituents, both on the Isle of Wight and across the country. Clearly they are a comfort in times of extraordinary difficulty and death, not only for those who are dying but for their families. These are very difficult times, and hospices provide succour, professional support and, probably above all, love and comfort.

On the Island we have the Mountbatten hospice. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes) spoke about Mountbatten. I will develop some of points he made and echo them. The Mountbatten hospice in Newport is one of our most cherished institutions on the Island. I thank all the people who work there and support it for the fantastic work that they do caring for people on the Isle of Wight. I pay special tribute to the head of our hospice, Nigel Hartley, one of the most impressive people we have on the Island and one of my favourite Islanders. He was a concert pianist before he started looking after people in the London Lighthouse clinic in the relatively early days of the AIDS pandemic. He learned to care for people at that time before moving eventually to the Island, and bringing a unique sense of occasionally eccentric but organised, highly competent and very loving leadership to that institution. We are hugely lucky to have somebody like Nigel.

On the hospice’s behalf, I will raise a few issues and get some clarity from the Minister. I know that I am not the only one saying that, but for Back Benchers there is clearly strength in numbers. Many of the issues that I will raise have been raised already, but I want to put them on the record. I do not want the NHS to take over hospices. We need to respect the charitable status of our hospices because it gives them strength. They are so directly related to and engaged in our communities, but we do need the NHS to pay its way in relation to our hospices. In the last two years, the Mountbatten hospices on the Isle of Wight and in Eastleigh have had cash increases from the NHS of under 2%, if I understand the figures correctly, and under 3%. Their cost increases have been much higher.

We are putting our hospices under very considerable financial pressure, so we are having to dig deeper into fundraising or look at ways of making cuts. That is not acceptable. We are not asking for the NHS to step in, but we are asking for the NHS to pay its way and, if it is using hospices, to give them sufficient funding. Otherwise, the burden of looking after the NHS’s responsibilities, for want of a better term, is falling heavily on folks in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh and on the Island. We have our major fundraiser for the Isle of Wight Mountbatten hospice on 12 May. Walk the Wight is a fantastic event. Last year it raised £460,000, but running a hospice is expensive and when it is dealing with below-inflation increases from our ICB, that is problematic.

I will raise one other issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh and I had two conversations with the ICB last week, one on the Isle of Wight Mountbatten hospice and the Eastleigh Mountbatten hospice, and the other a shared conversation with Hampshire colleagues about the work of the ICB. It is in special measures. We were told that somehow that was a very good thing. Clearly there is pressure on its expenditure and budget, and its management decisions in relation to that budget. I am concerned that when ICBs are in special measures, cutting funding to hospices—as opposed to acute services, which are hugely expensive—and potentially to primary care is seen as a quick win. Yet effective spending on primary care actually eases pressure on acute services, as does effective spending on hospices.

It is about the NHS paying its way; I am not talking about it taking over the system. Giving a little more funding—near inflation increases—to hospices enables them to perform a hugely important moral and medical duty not only to those who are dying but to their families. Hospices not only support people in the hospice; increasingly now my Mountbatten hospice—I suspect this the same for the hospice in Eastleigh—looks after people as they near death in their own homes.

On behalf of my hospice, I ask that we ensure that the ICB covering Hampshire and the Isle of Wight is doing its job effectively and properly. I think it fair to say, without being ungenerous towards those people, that some of us have concerns about some of the decisions being made. Can we ensure that the ICB is managing its affairs well and that, in so doing, it is giving support to hospices both in Eastleigh and in Newport and the Isle of Wight? Our hospice, the Mountbatten hospice, so badly needs it.