Yorkshire hospice leaders deliver letter to Prime Minister warning sector is at 'breaking point'

The intervention comes as nearly 60 per cent of hospices in England have already made, or are planning, cuts to frontline services this year, according to Hospice UK.

At the same time, some 380 beds lie unused as hospices cannot afford the staff to run them.

"These aren’t abstract figures - they translate into fewer people receiving the care they need at the end of life, and mounting pressure on an already overstretched NHS,” Charlie King, Hospice UK’s external affairs director, said.

Hospices say they have been hit by the Government’s national insurance and minimum wage rises, as well as increasing energy and fuel costs from the war in Iran.

Gareth Pierce, chief executive of Forget Me Not Children's Hospice, in Huddersfield, was one of the signatories, calling for Sir Keir Starmer to bring in a “long-term sustainable model”.

Just over a year ago, the hospice had to make “significant cuts”, Mr Pierce told The Yorkshire Post.

“What that has ultimately meant is that we have got less staff and we are not able to provide the same volume of support that we were able to back then.,” he said.

“Whilst that has stabilised us in the short term, increased costs and pressure from an economic perspective means we need to see a longer term solution to hospice funding going forward, otherwise hospices needing to make cuts are going to be a common picture up and down the country.”

The chief executive explained that “any funding uncertainty gives uncertainty to families”.

“The reality is at a time we should be scaling our services and making them stronger for the future, we are having to keep them tight.”

Hospice funding is currently split, with around 40 per cent covered by the NHS and the rest made up of charitable donations.

The sector says that this approach is unsustainable, and without urgent support more services will be lost.

Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Tom Gordon has completed the Great North Run three times for Saint Michael's Hospice.

However, due to the patchwork of funding across the country, Mr Gordon explained that the Harrogate hospice believes it has “the lowest funding for end of life care for any ICB (integrated care board).”

“We should not have a postcode lottery for some of the most challenging times in someone’s life,” the Lib Dem said.

Mr King explained: “Charity and voluntary funding is always going to have a massive role to play because people are going to want to support their local hospice.

“Communities rally in an incredible way around local hospices.”

Mr King explained that Hospice UK believes that “charitable funding should be used to fund the enhanced services”, such as better facilities and extra services like bereavement or counselling.

However, he said that specialist clinical care “should be paid for by the state”.

“So what we’re saying to the Government is that going forward, ICBs should be fully funding the cost of that specialist clinical care, then charitable funding is freed up to do all those brilliant extras,” he said.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told The Yorkshire Post: “Hospices do incredible work to support people and families when they need it most, and are facing incredibly tough pressures.

“This Government has made the biggest investment in hospices in a generation - £125m to improve hospice facilities and freeing up other funding for patient care.

“It has also committed £80m for children’s and young people’s hospices over three years. We will soon set out our plans to improve the palliative and end of life care sector and shift more healthcare out of hospitals and into the community.”