Hospices are facing a funding crisis. Almost every hospice in the UK is budgeting for a deficit in 2023/24, with Hospice UK estimating a shortfall of £186 million across the sector. This is not sustainable in the long term and will result in hospices being forced to cut services – indeed, some are already doing so. 

Here at Birmingham Hospice, it costs over £16 million to run our services each year, and 40% of that must come from fundraised income. However, the last few years have seen a big increase in costs, including the price we pay for energy, food and drugs, and a shortfall in funding for staff pay awards.

End of life care is the only part of the NHS that has never been fully funded, despite its stated purpose of being a ‘cradle to grave’ service. An estimated 100,000 people in the UK who could benefit from palliative care die without receiving it each year. Demand for this expert care continues to rise as people live longer, and with increasingly complex needs. 

The hospice sector helps to take pressure off the NHS by supporting those with a terminal diagnosis in our Inpatient Units and the community, and if we are forced to reduce the number of people we can help, that would cause longer waits for treatment elsewhere, and more people dying in hospital without the dignity of choice.

The state funding hospices receive is primarily distributed through integrated care boards (ICBs) – although ICBs are themselves dependent on central government for funding. We are calling on the government to do more to ensure that hospices are properly funded, so that we can continue to provide expert palliative and end of life care for all local people who need it.