Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support (a) adult’s and (b) children’s hospices with the cost of living.

Palliative and end of life care, including hospice care, is commissioned locally by integrated care boards (ICBs) in response to the needs of their local population. Charities, including hospices, have already benefitted from the Energy Bill Relief Scheme which ended on 31 March 2023, and provided £7 billion of support. Eligible organisations, including hospices, will continue to get baseline discount support on gas and electricity bills under the Energy Bills Discount Scheme from 1 April 2023 until 31 March 2024.

At a national level, NHS England has released £1.5 billion additional funding to ICBs to provide support for inflation, with ICBs deciding how best to distribute this funding within their systems, including to palliative and end of life care providers such as hospices.

Additionally, NHS England has invested £25 million in the Children and Young People hospice grant in the financial year 2023/24 to provide care closer to home for those seriously ill as and when they need it.