Hospice UK, Marie Curie, Together for Short Lives & Sue Ryder comment on the Spring Budget.
Toby Porter, CEO of Hospice UK said:
Hospices across the country are facing severe financial challenges and making tough decisions about the future of their services.
Yet today’s budget has been a missed opportunity to provide support to hospices so they can continue to be there for people who are dying.
Hospices support more than 300,000 people every year and they’re vital partners to the wider health and care system, taking pressure off NHS services. They only receive a small chunk of their funding from the state and rely on charitable donations to cover the remaining cost of their services. Amidst sharply increasing costs, this funding model is simply unsustainable.
We need government to urgently review how hospices are funded to ensure they get the money they need to continue their vital work.
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Marie Curie Chief Executive, Matthew Reed, said: “The Chancellor had an opportunity today to put palliative and end of life care on a more sustainable footing, and ensure that everyone affected by terminal illness receives the best possible care and support.
“Ahead of the Budget, Marie Curie had called on Jeremy Hunt to deliver a new funding solution for end of life care; for action to prevent poverty amongst working age people with a terminal illness; and for targeted support to help terminally ill people with the cost of energy.
“None of these commitments were made. Whilst it is welcome that the Treasury will provide additional support for charity-funded early career researchers, and much needed investment to digitise NHS patient records, services supporting people with terminal illness will continue to be stretched to their limits.
“Everybody deserves to be safe, comfortable and cared for at the end of their life. That’s why as we look towards a general election, we need all politicians and political parties to be committed to fixing the crisis in end of life care.”
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Together for Short Lives said: The UK Government’s Spring Budget provides no clarity on future funding for seriously ill children, the UK’s children’s palliative care charity
Despite some positive news, Budget 2024 was a missed opportunity for the Chancellor to provide sustainable, long-term funding to fill gaps in underfunded and understaffed children’s palliative care services across the UK.
Andy Fletcher, Chief Execuitve of Together for Short Lives said:
“With the annual NHS funding gap for children’s palliative care in England standing at £300 million – and, as yet, no clarity for children’s hospices on how and when they will receive the 2024/25 Children’s Hospice Grant – the Chancellor has done very little to improve the situation of seriously ill children and their families across the UK. The additional £2.5 billion of funding for the NHS in England in 2024/25 is good news, but amid rising costs and rising demand for services, it isn’t enough to ensure that children with the most complex needs get the care and support they need.
“A more productive NHS can only be a good thing. But without investing to ensure there are enough professionals with the skills and experience to provide complex palliative care to children, we will simply not have enough people to deliver the 24/7 care closer to families’ homes that reduce the unplanned hospital admissions that are so costly for the NHS.”
The Treasury also failed to offer families of seriously ill children the support they need to meet the costs of powering lifesaving equipment and to heat their homes, which remain significantly higher than for other households.
Andy Fletcher said: “Amid a persisting cost of living crisis for families of seriously ill children, I welcome the decision to extend the Household Support Fund in England from April to September 2024. However, the lack of a social energy tariff or targeted support for households with seriously ill children means that their families will continue to have to bear disproportionately high costs, even as the price of energy comes down.
“The £105 million to fund 15 new special free schools is positive, but does not address the urgent need for more specialist support in mainstream education settings. Aside from re-confirming the recent local government finance settlement, the Budget provides no new money to help fill the £573 million gap in local authority funding for disabled children’s social care.
“The Chancellor has also failed to address the very real difficulties and cuts to financial support that families of disabled children are experiencing when moving onto Universal Credit.
“Long-term decisions are needed to make sure the access to palliative care for children and families is levelled-up across the UK. But the Chancellor has failed to recognise that families with seriously ill children are not ordinary. For them, time is short – and they needed urgent action now.”
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And, from Sue Ryder, a story about what the budget missed – additional targeted support for terminally ill people – and how Sue Ryder is calling on the government for more support to help people die well?
The Cost of Dying Crisis: a society in which dying well is something people can’t afford
Sue Ryder called on the government to provide additional targeted support to dying people ahead of the Spring Budget
Research1 from Sue Ryder, the national healthcare charity which supports people at the end of life, has found the devastating impact high energy bills are having on people with a terminal illness and their families.
Over four fifths of people receiving end-of-life care have been unable to run essential medical equipment due to high energy costs (81%). The impact of this on dying patients has led to them needing emergency healthcare assistance (44%), poor pain and symptom management (36%) and a negative impact on their wellbeing (32%).
When receiving end-of-life care, medical appointments are imperative to ensure people have their pain and symptoms controlled as much as possible, medication reviews and access to important services such a physiotherapy and occupational therapy.
Yet, 91% of people at the end of life have been unable to attend medical or day centre appointments due to the increased cost-of-living, citing concerns about the costs of prescriptions that may result from visits (40%)2, friends and family being unable to take them as they need to work (36%), not being able to take the time off work (31%) and being unable to afford the travel costs (23%).
The impact of these patients not being able to attend essential medical appointments means increased visits from healthcare professionals (39%), poor pain and symptom management (34%) and needing emergency healthcare assistance (32%).
Ahead of the Spring Budget next week, Sue Ryder is backing calls for the government to put in place additional targeted support to cope with the cost of energy for dying people. The charity is urging the government to remove VAT from all energy bills and to introduce a social tariff for energy prices for all households living with a person with terminal illness.
Emma Vasey, Head of Influencing at Sue Ryder, said:
“We have found ourselves living in a society in which dying well is something people can’t afford.
“Sue Ryder’s expert medical teams provide specialist pain and symptom management to people with a life-threatening illness. We believe that the end of our patients’ lives should be filled with love, friendship, and their favourite past times. However, energy costs and financial hardship will be the stark reality for many of them.
“When someone is living with a terminal illness, their household income is reduced because, quite simply, they become too unwell to work. Making difficult choices about whether to keep warm, turn their oxygen machine on, whether they can afford to go to the doctor or if they can afford their medication is heartbreaking.
“The government can change this by making people living with a terminal illness automatically eligible to be exempt from the 5% VAT added to their energy bills and by introducing a social tariff which offers discounted energy rates to include people with a terminal illness, they could lessen the burden on these households.
“This would mean that fewer people are forced to go without medical equipment they rely on, which in turn could help decrease the need for emergency hospital admissions, relieving the ever-growing pressure on the NHS over the winter months.”
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