More government funding needed for children's hospices

The charity Together for Short Lives warns children's hospices in England will be forced to cut services or shut unless the NHS increases its funding.

According to Together for Short Lives, children's hospices in England each spend an average of £3.7m per year - which works out as a total annual spend across the country of £125m. Their spending has increased by 4.5% since 2016/17, it said.
But the percentage which the state contributes has fallen from 27% to 21% in five years, the report said - and hospices have been forced to use their reserve funds or stop services (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk)

This is a terrible indictment of the welfare state under this government where hospices for sick children are severely underfunded, leaving them to seek funds from ordinary people often performing feats to raise money to support hospices. This is the role of government in a civilised and human society where sick children in this situation deserve dignity and humanity from the state in their sadly short lives.

The Secretary of State should act now and at the very least increase the percentage of funding his department contributes to hospices to its previous level and show it has some humanity when it comes to supporting organisations looking after very sick and dying children.