Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, If he will make an assessment of the adequacy of hospice bed capacity and how this is tracked nationally.

The majority of hospices are charitable, independent organisations and, therefore, the Government does not collect or keep data on hospice bed capacity nationally. There are no current plans to make a formal assessment of the adequacy of hospice bed capacity.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning core and specialist palliative care services to meet the reasonable needs of their population, which can include hospice services available within the ICB catchment. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and a service specification.

The Government is developing a Palliative Care and End of Life Care Modern Service Framework (MSF) for England. Through our MSF, we 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. As part of the MSF, we will consider contracting and commissioning arrangements. We recognise that there is currently a mix of contracting models in the hospice sector. By supporting ICBs to commission more strategically, we can move away from grant and block contract models. In the long term, this will aid sustainability and help hospices’ ability to plan ahead.