More than 170 hospices across England will soon begin receiving funding to support their facilities, but sector leaders have warned longer-term investment is needed to support the workforce and prevent nursing redundancies.
The government has today confirmed the timeline for a £100m funding package to help hospices improve their physical environments, with £25m to be given from today and a further £75m to follow from April.
The funding, which was first announced last year, has been allocated through Hospice UK via the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and will be spent on capital projects like IT infrastructure development, facility upgrades and the purchasing of essential medical equipment.
Of the £100m committed to hospice capital funding, £25m will be given this financial year and must be spent on ‘facility upgrades and refurbishments’ by the end of March 2025.
The remaining £75m will be handed out from April, in the next financial year, and will be used to fund ‘more substantial’ capital projects, including ‘major building works and facility modernisation’.
More certainty needed
Chief executive of Shooting Star Hospice for children in London and Surrey, Paul Farthing, said while he welcomed the funding, longer-term financial support was needed to help the charity reach more families and meet growing demands.
‘We want to go on investing in our services, so we need to continue making the argument for long-term funding and also an increase to our funding, because we know there’s still families we can reach,’ he said.
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Shooting Star has received £169,787 to spend before March ends, with plans to spend the money on pre-scheduled capital upkeep and repairs projects.
Mr Farthing said the hospice is hoping for a ‘long term funding partnership’ in the government’s incoming 10 Year Plan for health, to remove the stress of waiting for annual funding updates for the hospice sector.
And he explained how ‘certainty’ around funding for the sector would support longer-term investment in nursing and clinical staff in the long term.
‘We’re still trying to recruit staff. We need more nursing staff in the system,’ he said.
A ‘mix’ of newly trained and experienced specialist nurses are needed in the hospice team, he added, with the hospice focused on upskilling its healthcare staff to expand its nursing team in line with patient and family needs.
The hospice has so far trained two healthcare assistants (HCAs) to become nursing associates (NAs), with plans to fund these NAs to become registered nurses.
‘We want to be able to invest in our current clinical staff in order to meet the demand. We need to have a longer-term arrangement,’ said Mr Farthing.
‘A bit of a scramble’
Mike Bartlett is deputy chief executive at Julia’s House, a children’s hospice based in Dorset and Wiltshire.
He said it will be ‘a bit of a scramble’ to spend the money by the end of March, with the hospice being given less than a month to order the items that will be covered by the funding.
Julia’s House has been allocated £131,315 in the first funding round, which will mostly be sent on new beds and IT infrastructure.
But Mr Bartlett explained that staffing costs will ‘always’ be the biggest expense for the hospice.
Julia’s House currently has no plans for nursing redundancies, but the hospice could face scaling down its respite services without longer term financial support.
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‘Nothing is off the table in the longer term,’ Mr Bartlett said.
Willen Hospice in Milton Keynes, which describes itself as ‘one of the most poorly funded hospices in the country’, also welcomed the one-off cash injection but said it wasn’t enough to cover increased costs.
‘We’re very grateful to the government for this one-off injection of money. We see it as recognition of the vital role hospices play in providing compassionate, high-quality end-of-life care, and of the precarious financial position that many hospices are now finding themselves in,’ said Richard Alsop, director of strategy and development at the hospice.
‘However, the investment is a one-off and doesn’t resolve the longer-term funding challenge for hospices.’
Funding will ‘transform’ facilities
Minister for care Stephen Kinnock said the funding will help ‘transform hospice facilities across England’ and improve the care for people at the end of their lives.
‘Hospices provide invaluable care and support when people need it most and this funding boost will ensure they are able to continue delivering exceptional care in better, modernised facilities,’ he added.
Toby Porter, chief executive officer of Hospice UK, said the funding will be ‘a huge relief’ for the sector, explaining that years of rising costs had ‘curtailed’ how hospices invested in long-term infrastructure.
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‘The funding will also support the development of outreach services, allowing hospices to extend their care beyond their physical buildings,’ he said.
‘This includes investing in mobile equipment and technology that will help support people who wish to receive end-of-life care in their own homes.’
And one hospice warned it would not be able to scale up nursing services to meet demands because of the additional financial pressures without additional financial support.
