Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of implementing a national strategy for hospice care.

The Government is determined to shift more healthcare out of hospitals and into the community, to ensure patients and families receive personalised care in the most appropriate setting, and palliative care and end of life care services, including hospices, will have a big role to play in that shift.

As part of the work to develop a 10-Year Health Plan, we have been carefully considering policies, including those that impact people with palliative care and end of life care needs, with input from the public, patients, health staff, and stakeholders. It is too early to say exactly what the 10-Year Health Plan will look like, but we expect palliative care and end of life care to benefit from the plan’s three big shifts.

In February, I met key palliative care and end of life care and hospice stakeholders, in a roundtable format with a focus on long-term sector sustainability within the context of our 10-Year Health Plan.