Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to section 3 of the National Health Service Act 2006, what steps he is taking to fund the expansion of palliative care.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for arranging healthcare services which meet the reasonable needs of the people for whom they are responsible, and for planning new service provision as required. This includes the level of National Health Service-funded palliative care and local hospice care.

While the NHS has always been required to commission appropriate palliative and end of life care services to meet the reasonable needs of the population, as part of the Health and Care Act 2022, the Government added palliative care services to the list of services an ICB must commission, to clarify this responsibility.