
The UK Government have announced that they will increase the NHS England funding for children’s hospices to £26 million in 2025/26.
This is a big success, which was helped by adding your voice to our lobbying of the Government. Asking them to commit to maintaining the £25 million of funding – funding which accounts for approximately 16% of children’s hospices’ charitable expenditure and is a crucial contribution.
We are pleased to see that not only have the Government committed to maintaining this funding in 2025/26, but they have also increased it to £26 million. Alongside this, the Government is also making available an additional £100 million in capital funding for all children’s and adults’ hospices in England this year and the next to enable improvements in facilities, IT systems, and outdoor spaces to enhance palliative and end of life care.
Why was this campaign important?
Despite this funding being vital for children’s hospices across the UK, until the announcement, the funding had only been confirmed for the 2024/25 financial year leaving great uncertainty about what would be available in 2025/26.
Children’s hospices offer a unique and vital source of end of life and respite care for seriously ill children, alongside support for the wider family. Without this funding, many children’s hospices would be at risk of cutting the services that they provide.
How did we secure this commitment, together?
With your support and voice, we undertook a range of campaigning activities:
- An open letter to the new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer calling on the Government to confirm this funding.
- A new policy report illustrating the findings from a survey of children’s hospices. This survey explored the state of children’s hospice funding across the UK and found many crucial services including end of life care and respite would be cut if this funding stream was not maintained in 2025/26.
- A parliamentary drop-in event in November as part of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children Who Need Palliative Care to raise awareness among MPs and encourage political action – at this event, 40 MPs attended and 18 signed a joint letter to the Minister of Care, Stephen Kinnock MP.
- Media engagement including numerous interviews with the likes of BBC, Sky, and GB News.
- Publishing detailed findings on the impact of the increase in employer National Insurance Contributions on children’s hospices.
- One-to-one meetings with MPs and Peers to help them understand the importance of this funding stream and motivate them to undertake parliamentary activity to press the Government to act.
- Briefing MPs ahead of key parliamentary debates, again encouraging them to press the Government to act.
What’s next?
This year (2024/25), this funding has been disseminated via NHS Integrated Care Boards (ICBs). As a result, children’s hospices have experienced, and many are continuing to experience, significant delays in accessing their 2024/25 funding. Now this funding has been confirmed, it is crucial that the UK Government takes steps to ensure this funding is ringfenced to protect it from being diverted to other areas and centrally distributed by NHS England to avoid delays.
This is something we are actively pushing for and were pleased to see a number of MPs back our calls during the General Debate on Hospice and Palliative Care in the House of Commons on Monday 13 January.
While the £26 million and £100 million represent positive news, they are only short-term solutions. We still urgently need a longer-term commitment to sustainable funding for children’s palliative services, in hospitals, children’s hospices and in the community, across the voluntary and statutory sector.
Additionally, this funding is only for hospices. Non-hospice charitable organisations will be significantly affected by the increase in employer National Insurance Contributions. It remains to be seen what, if any, support will be made available to them.
Furthermore, the funding package is solely for hospices in England. As such, we will continue to work with our members in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to ensure additional fair and sustainable funding is made available for both statutory and voluntary sector providers of children’s palliative care, including children’s hospices.
How can you get involved?
We will continue to campaign to close these gaps and ensure the sustainability of children’s hospice care across the UK. Look out for our campaigns and you can write to your local MP to raise awareness of these challenges. You can find out who your local MP is here.