Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer on 30 September 2019 to Question HL17641, on Palliative Care: Finance, what discussions he has had with representatives from NHS England on its review of the decision to not continue a separate funding stream for hospice and palliative care services beyond 2019-20.

No specific discussions have taken place. On 20 August 2019, the Government announced £25 million in funding to help alleviate pressures on hospices and boost local palliative care services, and to provide for new services such as out-of-hours support, respite care and specialist community teams. Clinical commissioning groups resource allocations were uplifted to reflect the new funding in October 2019, with clear guidance to work collaboratively to assign the money to hospices and palliative services as a Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) across their STP footprint.

This non-recurrent funding is for hospices and palliative services and relates to 2019/20 only. NHS England’s expectation is that, as the NHS Long Term Plan progresses and more of the Government’s £33.9 billion additional investment in the National Health Service becomes available to the front-line, a separate funding stream should not be required in future years.