Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the (a) adequacy of staffing levels and (b) potential impact of workforce levels on service delivery in hospices.

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.

Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing NHS services. As independent organisations, charitable hospices are free to develop and adapt their own terms and conditions of employment, including the pay scales. It is for them to determine what is affordable within the financial model they operate, and how to recoup any additional costs they face if they choose to utilise the terms and conditions of NHS staff on the Agenda for Change contract.

The NHS has been facing chronic workforce shortages for years, and we have to be honest that bringing in the staff we need will take time. The Government will make sure the NHS has the staff it needs to be there for all of us when we need it, including at the end of life. We have developed a 10-Year Health Plan to deliver an NHS fit for the future, and a central part of the plan is our workforce and how we ensure we train and provide the staff, technology, and infrastructure the NHS needs to care for patients across our communities.

We will publish a new workforce plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade, to ensure the NHS has the right people, in the right places, with the right skills to deliver the care patients need when they need it.

Additionally, we are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.

We are also providing £26 million in revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26.  I can also now confirm the continuation of this vital funding for the three years of the next Spending Review period, from 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive. This funding will see approximately £26 million, adjusted for inflation, allocated to children and young people’s hospices in England each year, via their local integrated care board on behalf of NHS England, as happened in 2024/25 and 2025/26.  This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.