Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent comparative assessment his Department has made of the equity of statutory income allocation for children's and adult’s hospice provision; and whether it is his policy that children's hospice funding should be equitable to funding for adult hospices.

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are responsible for commissioning local services. NHS England and NHS Improvement expect CCGs to ensure that the provision of palliative and end of life care (PEoLC) services, including children’s and adult’s hospice provision, effectively meets the needs of the local population and ensures high quality personalised care.

NHS England is increasing its contribution to children’s PEoLC by match-funding CCGs which commit to increase their investment in local children’s PEoLC services, including hospices. This will increase support from £11 million to £25 million a year by 2023/24. In addition, over £400 million has been made available to adult and children’s hospices since the start of the pandemic to increase National Health Service capacity. NHS England and NHS Improvement are reviewing current models of care, commissioning pathways and financial formulas to ensure the sector support children, young people, their families and loved ones.