The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Hospice and End of Life Care brings together MPs and Peers from across the political spectrum to campaign for high quality and accessible palliative and end of life care for all.
About the APPG
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The group’s purpose is to:
Raise awareness and promote the needs of adults and children living with terminal or life-limiting conditions, and their families and carers, in Parliament.
Promote person-centred, evidence-based policies to improve end of life care in all settings, including hospices, hospitals, care homes, and in people's own homes.
Hospice UK supports the APPG as its Secretariat. The cross-party parliamentarians leading the work of the APPG include:
The most recent Annual Activity Report can be found here.
Inquiry into government funding for hospices
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The APPG has launched an inquiry report into the state of government funding for hospices.
The inquiry found that despite the introduction of a legal requirement for Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to commission palliative and end of life care, ICB commissioning of hospice services is currently not fit for purpose. As a result, the services hospices provide for dying people and their families and the value they provide to the health system is at risk.
This report includes the inquiry’s key findings and recommendations to National Government, NHSE and local authorities to ensure hospices can contribute to a system where everyone who needs palliative and end of life care receives it.
The review found that the significant rise in deaths, including in people’s own homes, during the COVID-19 pandemic placed huge pressure on the health and care system and led to incidences of poor care. The sheer volume of death, alongside measures to reduce the spread of infection, resulted in extreme pressure on now exhausted health and care workers and unpaid carers.
The report makes recommendations to Government, NHS England, Integrated Care Boards, end of life care services and other actors in order to harness what the sector has learned over the past three years to improve palliative and end of life care for all.
