Hospice Funding: Devon

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Simon Jupp]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. One of the points he raised with me earlier, when he told me he was going to intervene on me, was about fundraising, and that has been really difficult since covid for all sorts of reasons.

Across the rest of my part of Devon, Hospiscare runs hospices at High View Gardens in Exmouth and Searle House in Exeter, and it has run has fantastic clinical nurse specialist teams in Budleigh Salterton, Exmouth and further afield in neighbouring constituencies. Hospiscare is the biggest of the local charities, and it supports 2,500 people each year. However, these charities need dedicated teams and a lot of funding to support many thousands of patients.

Funding matters even more because we know that Devon’s population is ageing and growing. In Devon, there are proportionately more older people than the national average. More than 25% of the total population in the Devon County Council area is aged over 65, compared with less than one in five of the total England population, and 14% of these people are 85 and over. By 2040, Devon’s population aged between 65 and 84 is predicted to increase to 225,000, which is a 27% rise, and the 85-plus population will nearly double to 56,000. Hospices across our county are therefore playing an increasingly key role.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the future challenges for hospices. Would he agree that plans such as those coming forward for Rowcroft Hospice in my own constituency to very much integrate and provide both nursing and sheltered accommodation, alongside the hospice services they will continue to provide, show a way to generate additional income, while not conflicting with their core purpose?

[Simon Jupp]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. These services are dynamic and they are working, and the people of Torbay are well served.

I was reminded of the increasing importance of hospices by Dr Timothy Dudgeon, a constituent of mine from Ottery St Mary. He first approached me two years ago, and we met at one of my regular surgeries in Exmouth shortly afterwards. His plea was simple: Hospiscare, one of the charities I have mentioned, needs fairer funding from the NHS in Devon to cope with growing demand. I fully agree with him, but here we are two years later because the NHS simply is not listening.

I have raised the matter through meetings, letters and everything else to the NHS Devon integrated care board, and I am taking my call to the Floor of this House because I want the chair of the ICB, Dr Sarah Wollaston, formerly of this place, to realise that I am not letting this unfair deal for Devon’s hospices go without challenge. The issue here is obvious to all, and the solution is simply common sense, which is something we ought to try a little more often.

Hospices across our country and county are facing a perfect storm: income from fundraising is falling while costs and demand for their services are rising. Hospiscare in Devon has told me that it is facing a £2.5 million deficit in the next financial year. Meanwhile, Sidmouth Hospice at Home has told me that its average case load has risen by over 50% in the last year alone. Amid this perfect storm, I have been calling on the NHS Devon ICB to increase its funding for all of our hospices.

ICBs are responsible for determining the level of funding for palliative and end-of-life care in their area. This is devolution, and I support it. The Government do not decide how funding is spent; local organisations should know their area best and where to send their money. However, I question the situation in Devon. If the ICB needs more money to achieve fairer hospice funding, I would bang down the door of any Minister to help them, if asked, but they have not asked, and we have faced a wall of silence.

That was, intriguingly, until a couple of hours ago, when I received a letter from the NHS Devon ICB. It is intriguing timing, do we not think, given that it did not reply to previous letters I sent last year? Now it has finally responded to one of my letters from November. The NHS Devon ICB says that it is

“working on plans to move towards more equitable NHS funding”,

starting in the next financial year. I am sure colleagues here will be pressing for more details about that.

The wall of silence we have all faced in Devon is why I have launched a campaign and a petition on my website to put pressure on the ICB to increase funding to our local hospices, which residents across my constituency of East Devon and beyond are supporting. I first raised this with NHS Devon ICB two years ago after I met with Dr Timothy Dudgeon. I really hope the Minister can support my message to the ICB and its chair Dr Sarah Wollaston. Our message is crystal clear: there needs to be a fairer deal. Hospiscare is funded for 18% of its costs from NHS Devon ICB compared with the national average of 37% from ICBs across England. Sidmouth Hospice at Home receives no funding from the NHS in Devon at all, and that puts it in a small minority in the country receiving no money from a local NHS body. That simply cannot be right.