Hospices in England to get £100m boost to help with cost pressures

Hospices in England are to receive a £100m-plus boost to funding amid worries that some end-of-life services could close because of the impact of the national insurance increase and wage rises.

The investment, announced in the Commons by the health minister Karin Smyth, was billed as “the biggest investment into hospices and end-of-life care in a generation”.

“This government recognises the range of cost pressures the hospice sector has been facing over a number of years,” she told MPs.

The funding, coming in two chunks covering this year to 2026, includes an extra £100m for adult and children’s hospices, for this year and next. An additional £26m in support over 2025/26 will go to children and young people’s hospices.

As well as helping with day-to-day spending, the money is intended to allow hospices, most of which are run as charities but which also receive government funding for their NHS-related work, to undertake refurbishment work, and to improve IT systems.

The most pressing financial crunch for the sector was the rise in employers’ national insurance unveiled in the budget, which hospice organisations believed could cost a combined £30m a year.

Hospices were already struggling with higher wage bills to match the 5.5% pay rise given to public medical workers, with the sector overall estimating an additional shortfall of about £60m.

The wider role of end-of-life care has also come into focus after the vote by MPs at the end of last month to back a bill which, if passed, would legalise assisted dying in England and Wales under certain limited circumstances.

In a statement released to coincide with the Commons announcement, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said: “Hospices provide the care and support for patients and families at the most difficult time so it is only right they are given the financial support to provide these services.

“This package will ensure they will be able to continue to deliver the compassionate care everyone deserves as they come to the end of their life in the best possible environment.”

Hospice UK, which campaigns for the sector, said the new money would be “hugely welcomed by hospices, and those who rely on their services”.

Toby Porter, who heads the organisation, said: “This funding will allow hospices to continue to reach hundreds of thousands of people every year with high-quality, compassionate care. We look forward to working with the government to make sure everyone approaching the end of life gets the care and support they need, when and where they need it.”

However, responding to Smyth’s statement in the Commons, the shadow health minister Caroline Johnson, who had asked an urgent question on the issue, said she did not necessarily believe that hospices would be better off.

She said: “They are taking millions of pounds of hospices and palliative care charities and then think they should be grateful when they give them some of it back. This is socialism at its finest.”

Smyth declined to say how much the national insurance rise might cost the sector.