News, Manchester
Financially struggling hospices need a long-term funding plan rather than “sticking plaster” solutions, a government minister has said.
Health and Social Care Minister Stephen Kinnock last week announced £75m to be shared by 170 hospices across the country.
Unlike the NHS, hospices are not fully funded by the state and rely on charity contributions for about two thirds of their funding, with the sector reporting an estimated shortfall of £60m during the last financial year.
Speaking at Wigan & Leigh Hospice in Greater Manchester, which received £500,000 from the funding pool, Kinnock said the government needed to cover a bigger portion of the cost.
“We do warmly welcome the way that people step up and get involved in supporting their local hospice, but I absolutely recognise that we, the Department for Health and Social Care, we need to step up and do our bit,” he said.
The £75 million is in addition to a £25 million package the government distributed in February.
Hospices in the north west of England provide end-of-life and palliative care for some 23,000 people in the region, with demand and costs continuing to rise.
Geoff Crook, 68, had been receiving care at Wigan & Leigh Hospice earlier this month alongside his wife Margaret, allowing him to be by her side for her final moments.
“I don’t think we would have been able to cope if we hadn’t had anything like this, I really don’t” he said.
Wigan & Leigh Hospice chief executive Jo Carby said the £500,000 would be used to fix the building’s leaking roof and to put in a new heating system and memory garden.
But she said it was “not enough” and that hospices needed a longer-term solution.
“Everyone’s struggling for money essentially in our borough and it is unfair for us to be asking the people of Wigan to be spending more of their money when they already have less to spend in order to keep the hospice going,” she said.
Kinnock said the government was currently negotiating how much funding would be allocated to palliative and end-of-life care in its three-year-spending review settlement.
He said: “As soon as we have that I want to see that long-term plan to take us at least through to the end of this parliament.
Kinnock said the government was determined to find “long-term solutions”.
“I have made it very clear to my team of officials in [the Department] that I don’t want another last-minute scramble at the end of the financial year to, with a sticking plaster, solve a problem for the short term,” he said.
