Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the 10-year health plan will include policies on palliative care.

We have committed to developing a 10-year plan to deliver a National Health Service fit for the future. We will carefully be considering policies, including those that impact people with palliative and end of life care needs, with input from the public, patients, health staff, and our stakeholders, including those in the hospice sector, as we develop the plan.

The engagement process has been launched, and I would encourage the palliative and end of life care sector, including hospice providers, service users, and their families, to engage with that process to allow us to fully understand what is not working as well as it should, and what the potential solutions are. Further information is available at the following link:

https://change.nhs.uk/en-GB/

On 19 December the government announced the biggest investment in a generation for hospices to help ensure that hospices can continue to deliver the highest quality end of life care possible for their patients, families, and loved ones.

We are supporting the hospice sector with £100 million funding for adult and children’s hospices to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.

Children and young people’s hospices will also receive a further £26 million revenue funding for 2025/26. This is a continuation of the funding which until recently was known as the children and young people’s hospice grant.

We will set out the details of the funding allocation and dissemination in the new year.