Responding to this week’s Welsh Government Statement in the Assembly on ‘End of Life Care’, Mark Isherwood AM made fresh calls for the Health Secretary to provide more support for hospices.
Mr Isherwood, who is Chair of both the Cross Party Group on Hospices and Palliative Care and the Cross Party Group on Funerals and Bereavement, said that with the majority of end-of-life care in Wales provided by hospices across a range of settings, including in-patient units and hospice-at-home services, it is essential they are given the funding and support they require.
He said:
“I’ve been asking successive Health Ministers and our Health Secretary here for many years to ensure that NHS Wales starts asking our wonderful community hospice movement how it can help them deliver more for the resources available - in modern, parlance, designing, delivering and co-producing services with them - and too many still feel that that’s not the case.
“Hospices Cymru, as you’ll be aware, are receiving Welsh Government funding on a ring-fenced basis through health authorities over a three-year period, but that period finishes in 2018. Can you provide assurance to them that this funding will continue to be ring-fenced when the existing funding expires, because they need to know for their forward planning? If not, can you indicate when you might be able to provide that assurance, or at least information?”
He added: “At 16 per cent to 20 per cent, hospices in Wales still receive far less Government funding - that’s Welsh Government and Welsh NHS funding - than their English and Scottish counterparts. They also highlight a postcode lottery of hospice services, with a disparity of care available between different parts of Wales. When will the Welsh Government finally, in the context of my previous question, recognise that, by discussing, designing and delivering with them on a more balanced funding basis, it’s win-win for everybody, and the means of delivering in a strict budgetary environment?”
“Hospices Cymru support the ‘Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care: A National Framework for Local Action 2015-2020’ document, drawn up by the palliative and end-of-life care partnership in England across all the sectors, and this has ambitions for each person to be seen as an individual, to have fair access to care, the co-ordination of care and much more. How do you respond to their call for this model to become more integrated into the Wales End-Of-Life Care Delivery Plan so that we may all learn from each other and benefit together?”
Mr Isherwood added: “Unless this Welsh Government closes the funding gap, it will continue to miss the open opportunity provided by our community hospices, and spend elsewhere delivering less. “
