{"id":231533,"date":"2025-10-29T06:22:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T06:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/231533\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T06:22:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T06:22:06","slug":"hundreds-of-hospice-beds-and-staff-cut-in-england-amid-funding-crisis-hospices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/231533\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of hospice beds and staff cut in England amid funding crisis | Hospices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hospices in England are cutting hundreds of beds and staff because of a funding crisis, despite a sharp rise in demand for palliative care, a damning report warns.<\/p>\n

People needing end of life care faced a postcode lottery because access to services was so patchy, the National Audit Office (NAO) reported.<\/p>\n

A lack of government oversight meant ministers were unaware of how reliant they were on independent hospices, its 52-page report found.<\/p>\n

The NAO said nearly two-thirds of independent hospices in England<\/a> reported a deficit in 2023-24. Overall expenditure was \u00a378m more than income generated.<\/p>\n

As a result, services have been slashed and hospices forced to cut the number of beds available for dying people and those with life-limiting conditions. At the end of 2024, about 300 inpatient beds were \u201cderegistered or withdrawn from operation\u201d, the report found, though some could have been because of a preference for being cared for at home.<\/p>\n

Hospices have been forced to cut back on staff, the NAO added, despite the fact that demand for palliative care was increasing.<\/p>\n

The NAO highlighted \u201cvariation\u201d in where hospices were situated across England, owing to the \u201cunplanned way\u201d they have developed over the past few decades.<\/p>\n

Experts said the report showed the \u201cinconsistency and insufficiency\u201d in how hospices were funded. In 2023-24, about 29% of income for hospices came from the government. Most of their income was generated from charitable sources, such as charity shops and donations, the NAO reported.<\/p>\n

The Department of Health<\/a> and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England had no idea \u201chow reliant they are on the sector\u201d because they did not know what proportion of palliative care in England was provided by the independent hospice sector.<\/p>\n

Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: \u201cIndependent hospices play a key role in providing palliative and end of life care and provide choice for people at the end of their lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith many more people expected to want hospice care in the future, it is crucial that the sector is financially resilient. DHSC and NHSE should assess how they would meet increased demand for palliative and end of life care should services delivered by independent adult hospices be insufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sam Royston, the executive director for research and policy at Marie Curie, said the NAO findings echoed the \u201ccrisis\u201d he witnessed in the sector every day.<\/p>\n

The chief executive of Sue Ryder, James Sanderson, said the report exposed the government for not having \u201ca clear picture of the value of hospices\u201d.<\/p>\n

The DHSC said hospices did \u201cincredible work\u201d to support people, and it recognised the \u201cincredibly tough\u201d pressures they faced.<\/p>\n

The NAO report covered a period under the previous government, a spokesperson added. \u201cSince then, we\u2019ve made the biggest investment in a generation \u2013 \u00a3100m \u2013 to improve hospice facilities and have committed to \u00a380m for children\u2019s and young people\u2019s hospices over three years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognise there is more to do, and we are exploring how we can improve the access, quality and sustainability of all-age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-year health plan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hospices in England are cutting hundreds of beds and staff because of a funding crisis, despite a sharp…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-231533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}