Reform of Social Care

Jason McCartney Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

As I said earlier, this is one of the issues on which I hope we will have further discussion as part of the debate on wider social care reform leading to the White Paper.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

End-of-life care is massively enhanced by Kirkwood hospice in my part of west Yorkshire, and the construction of a new children’s hospice has just begun on the outskirts of Huddersfield, funded by the West Yorkshire Forget Me Not Trust. Does my right hon. Friend agree that when considering the hospice movement in our country, we must always remember the children’s hospice movement?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The children’s hospice movement has done immensely good work over the years. I am aware of that in my own constituency through the work of East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices, and I am sure many Members also completely understand. That movement’s work has been done in circumstances in which a very small proportion of the resources for children’s hospices comes from state sources. The palliative care funding review addresses both adult’s and children’s end-of-life care and palliative care and identifies per-patient funding for children as well as adults, and it therefore offers children’s hospices precisely the same kind of security in the future as adult hospices.