Hospice Sector: Fiscal Support and Cost of Living

Feryal Clark Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Paisley. I pay tribute to and thank the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), who secured this important debate. I also praise the important contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), who is no longer in his seat, the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), and the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady).

I pay tribute to the vital role that the hospice movement plays in the UK. I particularly want to mention Hospice UK and Marie Curie, who do so much in this area. The palliative care and services that hospices deliver is crucial to improving the quality of life for people with terminal illnesses. They are vital to a dignified, comfortable and compassionate end of life. Hospices serve a huge number of our communities. As we heard today, in the UK in 2020-21 more than 300,000 people received care from hospices; that is against a backdrop of more than 650,000 deaths in the UK in 2021. Hospices also work across the system to reduce the pressure on the NHS and to train and support health and care workers.

Hospices care for some of the most vulnerable people in our society. As we have heard today, the majority of hospices rely on charitable funding for a significant amount of the funding they use to deliver services. Prior to the pandemic, an average of 34% of adult hospice funding and 18% of children’s hospice funding came from the Government, but now many are struggling to pay the rising costs of energy, food and staff. Hospices face additional costs of around £100 million a year. Those who run them worry about the future of their services and the level of service that they will be able to provide, but reducing energy consumption in hospices, as we have heard, is not an option. They need to keep medical machines running and the in-patient units warm for those receiving care.

I am sure the Minister will point us towards the energy bills discount scheme, but, as we have heard today, under that scheme hospices will be eligible for the same reduced level of support as pubs and restaurants, and even less support than a zoo or a museum. I appreciate this is not in the Minister’s brief, but I would be grateful if he set out the rationale for that and whether the Government have a plan to reassess and address that in the coming Budget. Although NHS services may have their energy bills paid for by the Government, hospices will be expected to raise money to pay the astronomical bills that they will receive after April.

How do the Government expect already struggling communities to keep hospices running? I am sure the Minister agrees with me about how unfair that is, and I am sure he also agrees with the praise for the hospice sector we have heard this afternoon. In February, a written question in the House of Lords asked the Government what assessment they had made of the impact of the increased cost of living and energy costs on hospices in England. Sadly, the answer was:

“No assessment has been made.”

I would be grateful if the Minister gave a commitment to carry out such an assessment.

The NHS long-term plan includes a welcome ambition to improve end-of-life care. I struggle to see how that ambition will be met, in the light of hospices being under such fiscal pressure. It feels like Government support of the sector is lacking. So many of us will, at some point, rely on hospices to take care of us or our loved ones. Following the pandemic, we see even more referrals to hospices. I will be interested to hear from the Minister what assessments have been made of the ambition to improve end-of-life care in the light of the compelling arguments that Members have set out this afternoon.

Yesterday, the APPG for hospice and end of life care released its report, “The Lasting Impact of COVID-19 on Death, Dying and Bereavement”. One of its recommendations is that the Government should conduct a review of hospice funding in England. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us whether the Government will be considering those recommendations and when we are likely to hear the response. Hospices do such fantastic work, in providing care in the most unimaginable of circumstances. We need to ensure that they continue to do so.