Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will respond to the findings of Marie Curie’s Better End of Life report published in November 2022 entitled Mind the gaps: understanding and improving out-of-hours care for people with advanced illness and their informal carers; and what assessment his Department has made of the impact of access to 24/7 palliative care telephone advice lines for people with a terminal illness and their carers.

Local commissioners are responsible for ensuring access to palliative and end of life care. NHS England has published statutory guidance to support commissioners with implementation of the Health and Care Act 2022, including how services should meet population needs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.