Children’s Hospices: Funding Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Iqbal Mohamed
Main Page: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)Department Debates - View all Iqbal Mohamed's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this important debate. In preparing for it, I learned that more than half of children’s hospices around the UK reported a deficit in 2023-24. As a result of a lack of long-term and sustainable statutory funding, coupled with the increasing costs incurred when providing lifeline care to seriously ill children and their families, more than half of children’s hospices in England ended the year in deficit. Looking ahead to 2024 and ’25, the picture gets even worse, with nearly three quarters of children’s hospices forecasting a net deficit and with the total shortfall across 35 organisations estimated to reach £25 million.
In Kirklees, where my constituency sits, Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice is an essential part of our local health and care system. It offers vital palliative care and support to seriously ill children and their families. Despite that, however, the hospice is facing a turning point: crucial services, including respite and end of life care, will be cut if the Government fail to maintain the existing £25 million NHS grant funding for children hospices. For Forget Me Not, the impact of losing that grant would be catastrophic and result in a significant reduction in services in our area. That comes on top of already fragile sustainability as a result of historic underfunding, making it one of the least funded hospices in the UK.
Amid a year of high inflation and the growing costs of recruiting and retaining skilled and experienced staff, children’s hospices’ costs are rising. UK Government Ministers must act urgently to ensure that seriously ill children and their families can access the crucial hospice and palliative care services they need. I stand here and join other hon. Members in asking the Minister to maintain the £25 million as ringfenced, centrally distributed NHS funding for children’ hospices beyond 2025, and to ensure that that funding increases by at least the rate of inflation. I also ask the Minister to use the new 10-year plan for England to review the way in which children’s palliative care is planned and funded, and to ensure that those vital and critical services are funded in full and not left to rely on community fundraising.