Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what modelling he undertook during the Spending Review process for funding for the (a) palliative and (b) end of life care sectors for (i) 2025-26, (ii) 2026-27 and (iii) 2027-28.

Department and NHS England officials used a variety of data sources, local examples, and academic research in the modelling for the palliative care and end of life care bids that were made as part of the Spending Review (SR) process.

The SR announced that annual National Health Service day-to-day spending will increase by £29 billion in real terms by 2028/29 compared to 2023/24. This will take the NHS resource budget to £226 billion by 2028/29, the equivalent to a 3% average annual real terms growth rate over the SR period.

At this stage, it is still too early to say how much funding will be allocated to palliative care and end of life care, which will be worked through in the coming weeks.

Whilst the majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by NHS staff and services, we recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, also play in providing support to people at the end of life, as well as their loved ones. Integrated care boards are responsible for the commissioning of palliative care and end of life care services to meet the needs of their local populations, and this can include, but does not have to include, services commissioned from hospice providers.

We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care. We are also providing £26 million of revenue funding for children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26.