Marie Curie responds to UK Government hospice sector funding announcement

Matthew Reed, Chief Executive of Marie Curie, said:

"While Marie Curie welcomes investment to the hospice sector, one-off support with capital costs will not address the long-term funding challenges or tackle the inequalities that exist in end of life care in every part of the UK.

"As a charity, we have spent far more than we received in the last year, due to inflation and the rising cost of delivering care. Going forward, we also have to find an additional £3million to cover the increase in our National Insurance contributions.

"The UK public purse spends five times more on hospital inpatients than on primary, community health, and hospice care combined. We need to radically transform care of the dying, and to do this, we need transformation funding to support the development and scaling of proven services that enable the shift from hospital to community-based end of life care."

"Funding needs to be strategically allocated and spent responsibly to deliver the greatest impact to the greatest number of people, especially those who are underserved and who end up dying in hospital in pain and alone because they can't access the care, they need at the right time, in the right place for them."