Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 6:14 pm on 22 April 2024.
I agree. It is important to point out that most hospices do not want 100% funding from the Government because they need the flexibility to do what they want. Fundraising is a really important part of the local community effort, bringing people together, but when the dependence on fundraising is so vast we might need to intervene to provide extra funding.
End of life care is an essential service that so many of us will need, but the situation is made worse by inflationary pressures and rising demand. We have an excellent ICB in Sussex—NHS Sussex, led by Adam Doyle—which has highlighted that hospices are recognised as having become increasingly fragile in recent years, due to a lack of resilience in their funding model, which is heavily reliant on gifted income alongside NHS grants.