Hospice Funding Debate
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Lord Balfe
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Hospice Funding
Lord Balfe Excerpts(3 days, 15 hours ago)
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Baroness Merron (Lab)
My noble friend makes a very helpful point that I will certainly follow up. The fact that the majority of hospice care is provided through the NHS suggests that there is room for further co-operation between the independent hospice sector and the NHS. I am grateful for her comments and will follow that up.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I remind the House that I am joint chair of Together for Short Lives, the hospice movement for babies and young persons. We greatly welcome the decision and announcement by the Government. Our only hope, as has been alluded to, is that there will be a development to get some forward perspective. One of the problems I addressed in my meeting with Minister Kinnock was the short-termism there has been. Can we use this gap to try to get a longer-term perspective for funding?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
We would certainly like to do that. As I mentioned, we will talk with Together for Short Lives and others to achieve that. It is very important to make sure that there are no delays to funding and that it promptly gets to where it needs to be. That is the other area we will attend to.