Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure the NHS provides sufficient and timely palliative care services for terminally ill patients, including through increasing staff, beds and funding.

Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. This promotes a more consistent national approach and supports commissioners in prioritising palliative care and end of life care. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications.

NHS England has also developed a palliative and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place.

Whilst the majority of these services are provided by National Health Service staff, we are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.

We are also providing £26 million in revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26.  I can also now confirm the continuation of this vital funding for the three years of the next Spending Review period, adjusted for inflation, from 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive.  This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.

In the long-term, the Government and the NHS will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative care and end of life care services to ensure that services reduce variation in access and quality.

We will publish a new workforce plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade, and to ensure the NHS has the right people, in the right places, with the right skills to deliver the care patients need when they need it, including at the end of life.