Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the implications for its policies of the findings of Marie Curie's Better End of Life report, published on 8 April 2021, and what plans he has to improve the resourcing of palliative and end of life care in the community.

As raised by Marie Curie’s report, the Government recognises the vital role hospices have played in the response to the pandemic and made up to £280 million of additional funding available from March 2020 to March 2021. Within this funding was provision to support 46,500 community contacts per day, which included supporting people at the end of their life within the community. The Government has also either funded directly or committed to reimburse all known personal protective equipment requirements for all end of life and palliative care providers, including hospices, until March 2022.

Clinical commissioning groups commission palliative and end of life care services in response to the needs of their local population to fulfil their core duty to commission high-quality care. NHS England and NHS Improvement have developed Palliative and End of Life Care Strategic Clinical Networks, working closely with local commissioners to develop and implement sustainable commissioning models for palliative and end of life care, including hospice services.