When will the Welsh Government bring forward a sustainable funding settlement for Welsh hospices, so they can offer more support and care for children with life-limiting conditions in Wales?
Hospices provide incredibly important services and offer enormous support to patients, families and carers.
Welsh Government continues to invest more than £8.4m every year to support specialist palliative care services across Wales. Much of this funding goes to adult and children’s hospices. In addition £12.3m of emergency funding has been allocated to support adult and children’s hospices since the start of the pandemic. This funding has been used to protect clinical services and strengthen hospice bereavement support.
Reviewing patient pathway planning and hospice funding is a key commitment within the Welsh Government’s Programme for Government. The End of Life Care Board has begun to scope out the requirements for a review of hospice funding and a specification for this work will be shared with relevant stakeholders at a workshop next month.
The review is scheduled to be completed later this year and the findings will be used to help inform future budget commitments.