Children’s Hospices: South-east England

Debate between Pippa Heylings and Alison Bennett

Thursday 16th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

My hon. Friend has brought forward a critical debate on children’s hospices. While we are looking at children’s hospices, let me say that this issue is also critical for adult hospices. In South Cambridgeshire, we have the fabulous Arthur Rank hospice, which at the moment is looking toward the cutting of its adult hospice beds. The outcry from constituents and members is huge. Does my hon. Friend agree that the ICBs could look at strategic commissioning of that care across both adult and children’s hospice beds?

[Alison Bennett]

I thank my hon. Friend for the campaigning she is doing with her colleagues on Arthur Rank hospice in Cambridgeshire, and she is right. When I went to visit Chestnut Tree House in Sussex last week, I saw that it is talking to adult hospices in the area about where that more strategic view can happen.

These children deserve dignity, comfort and skilled care, and their families deserve the support that only children’s hospices can offer. Will this Government truly support the vision laid out in the NHS 10-year plan in which neighbourhood health centres, hospitals and hospices work together to deliver high-quality end-of-life care in the community, or will we continue to let these vital services be ignored, underfunded and unconnected? There is an opportunity for more action than that in this morning’s announcement and for a longer-term commitment. I urge the Minister to do what is necessary and right and ensure that no child is left without the care and dignity that they deserve.

SEND Provision: Autism and ADHD

Debate between Pippa Heylings and Alison Bennett

Thursday 12th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Pippa Heylings]

I could not concur more. Over the past decade or more, we saw chronic under-investment from the Conservative Government, despite the needs having been recognised in statute, and that has left us in this pressure point situation. We are now seeing the results of that. I have also been told that this is a time bomb, because we will see the impacts in the future in the quality of life, in opportunities, in the NHS and in social services—in all services really—if we do not deal with this situation.

I have also been told about the situation for siblings. When a child is not given the support that they need in school, young carer siblings are often drawn out of their class and asked to be with their sibling during their lunch break or lessons. There is an impact on all those affected.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

On that point about young carers, does my hon. Friend agree that, at the moment, schools struggle to recognise how many young carers are on their rolls? Does she think that the Department for Education would be wise to look at better ways of measuring the number of young carers and giving schools the toolkits to identify them?

[Pippa Heylings]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. The Carers Trust has provided us with these stories and pointed out that we really need to collect this evidence. It would be easy to point the finger at local councils and say that this is their failure, but, as we have said, they are stretched to their limits by a chronic lack of funding. We have heard that f40, the cross-party local authority campaign group, has estimated that an additional £4.6 billion of annual SEND revenue is required to meet the current need, yet most of our county councils face a black hole in their budgets. One issue is the training and retention of educational psychologists, because they and council workers are overwhelmed. Turnover rates are high and burnout is common, which leads to an exacerbation of those waiting lists.