Fund end-of-life care
Prime Minister Keir Starmer
Hospices provide a vital service, but they’re facing a funding crisis.
They don’t get enough money from central government and that’s forcing cuts and even risking closures.
In Liverpool, we just raised an incredible £5 million in 30 days to save Zoe’s Place Baby Hospice. But as one constituent said to me, “we shouldn’t have to sell charity cupcakes to care for seriously sick children.”
We need the government to step-in and provide hospices with the funding they need to survive and thrive into the future.
Add your name to this petition to call on the Prime Minister to fund our hospices.
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To:
Prime Minister Keir Starmer
From:
[Your Name]
Dear Prime Minister,
Hospices provide a vital service, caring for people in their most difficult times.
But hospices are facing a funding crisis. Hospice UK estimates the sector is facing a £60 million deficit this year.[1] Hospices are already making cuts and some fear they could be forced to close.
This is the result of an unsustainable funding model.
In Liverpool, Zoe’s Place Baby Hospice was on the brink of closure, needing to raise a mammoth £5 million in just 30 days.
The city rallied to the cause and incredibly saved the baby hospice, but as one campaigner said, “we shouldn’t have to sell charity cupcakes to care for seriously sick children.”
End of life care is part of the NHS, but it’s never been fully funded. Just one third of hospice income is from the government, with the rest coming from charitable donations.[2]
The result of this broken model is that more than 100,000 people in the UK die each year needing palliative care but not receiving it.[3] With an aging population, this problem is set to get even worse.
Care for terminally ill people is a vital service, not a luxury. So we call on the government to provide hospices with the funding they need to survive – and thrive – into the future.
Yours sincerely,
[1] https://hospiceuk-files-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2024-09/Hospice%20Financial%20Benchmarking%20Report%20Sep24%20v3.pdf
[2] https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/hospices-state-funding
[3] https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/POST-PN-0675/POST-PN-0675.pdf