Hospice leaders win 27m funding boost

The government has found an extra 27m of funding for children’s hospices in England after the sector told the prime minister last month that it faced a financial crisis.

The money comes after a delegation from the Association of Children’s Hospices met Tony Blair to push for reforms to hospice funding.

Children’s hospices only receive about 5 per cent of their funding from statutory agencies. Three-year lottery grants worth 5.8m a year are coming to an end this year.

The new money, which will be spread over three years, will be for services provided by hospices such as help at home and end-of-life care.

ACH chief executive Barbara Gelb said: “We have got a lot of hard work to look at what the eligibility criteria [to get the money] are going to be.”

She said the funding would prevent cuts to several services but it was still likely that some would be reduced.