Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of the State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of ringfenced funding to ensure that local authorities are able to fund voluntary sector children’s palliative care providers to sustainably provide short respite breaks for seriously ill children.

There are no plans to make this specific assessment.

Local authorities have a statutory duty to assess the social care needs of disabled children and young people and to provide respite care where necessary. Where it is appropriate, local authorities can fund respite care provided by hospices, either as a short-term stay or as a service provided to the child or young person in the family home by the hospice team. Local authorities and clinical commissioning groups regularly liaise to plan and commission the most appropriate package of respite care for the children and young people with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions in their area.