Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of the planned £29 billion annual increase in the NHS budget over the next three years will be allocated to children’s palliative care services.

Palliative care services, including for children, are included in the list of services that integrated care boards (ICBs), including the Suffolk and North East Essex ICB, must commission.

To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications. The statutory guidance states that ICBs must work to ensure that there is sufficient provision of care services to meet the needs of their local populations, which can include hospice services available within the ICB catchment.

The Department and NHS England are looking at how to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all-age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10 Year Health Plan.

The Government and the National Health Service will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative care and end of life care services to ensure that the future state of services reduces variation in access and quality, although some variation may be appropriate to reflect both innovation and the needs of local populations.

Officials will present further proposals to ministers over the coming months, outlining how to operationalise the required changes to palliative care and end of life care to enable the shift from hospital to community, including as part of neighbourhood health teams.