"Lord Darzi's diagnosis of the challenges facing our health and social care system makes for brutal reading. We welcome his recognition that society needs to restart the conversation about how to die well: with dignity, compassion, and preferences respected.
"Listening to the Prime Minister and health secretary today, the solutions they are putting forward are the right ones. In particular, the shift to care in the community - in local clinics and in people's homes - is absolutely what is right for patients, right for staff and right for the taxpayer too. As the government has recognised, hospices have a 'big role' to play in this shift.
"A ten-year plan is welcome, and we recognise that change will take time. As the report says, we have to make sure that funding flows to the right places. This will ring very true for hospices who are struggling to secure stable, long-term funding arrangements.
"But what we need now is action. Right now, end of life care services in communities are being cut back. Frontline staff - nurses, healthcare assistants - are being made redundant, right now. That has to stop - and that means urgent support from government today."
Write to your MP today to tell them about the UK hospice funding crisis
As the new government gets to work, hospices are in crisis. Costs are rising, funding has stalled, demand for care is growing. Now services are being cut.
