Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much has been spent from the public purse on palliative care services for children in (a) the London Borough of Southwark and (b) England in each of the last eight years.

As with the vast majority of NHS services, the funding and commissioning of palliative and end of life care is a local matter, over which individual clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have responsibility. CCGs are best placed to understand the needs of local populations and commission services to meet those needs accordingly, and as such, decisions to fund an increase for palliative care services or hospice provision are for the local National Health Service.

Much of the palliative care patients receive will be provided either in outpatient or community settings, by nurses, community teams or general practitioners (GPs) as part of general NHS services provision, rather than as an identified palliative care service. In such services, data are either not available or does not identify palliative treatment. In addition, social and voluntary sector organisations can provide additional support to patients and the end of life. Therefore, figures for the total cost of palliative care service for children nationally, or across boroughs, is not available.