Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to provide additional revenue funding to hospices in (a) 2026-27, (b) 2027-2028, and (c) 2028-2029 financial years.

Whilst the majority of palliative care and end-of-life care is provided by National Health Service staff and services, we recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, also play in providing support to people at the end of life and their loved ones.

We recognise the significant challenges facing the hospice sector in England, including cost pressures and financial fragility. That is why we have supported the sector with a £125 million capital funding boost for adult and children’s hospices to ensure they have the best physical environment for care. We are also providing approximately £80 million of revenue funding for children and young people’s hospices over three financial years, 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive, giving them the stability they need to plan ahead.

We are not in a position to offer additional funding beyond this at this time. However, we are supporting the sector in other ways. For example, the Government is developing a Modern Service Framework for Palliative Care and End‑of‑Life Care. An interim update has now been published the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS88, with the full report due to be published in autumn 2026. We are asking integrated care boards to move to sustainable contracting of adult, and children and young people’s, hospice services, based on their integrated needs assessment. Initially, this will involve the move away from short-term grant funding for adult hospice services from 2027/28.