• Palliative Care
• Hospice care
• Terminal care

On Monday, 22 April, the House of Commons debated hospice funding. While there is an overwhelmingly positive perception of hospice care among those who have experienced it, the future of hospice provision is insecure, putting dying people and their families at significant risk. The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Hospice and End-of-life Care found that despite Integrated Care Boards (ICB) having legal responsibility to commission palliative care services that meet population needs,1 the way hospice services are funded in England is not fit for purpose. With each hospice in England receiving only one-third of their overall funding from the government, the hospice sector is facing a £77 million deficit2 increasingly relying on income generation from the local community. The parliamentary debate called for certainty of funding and sustainability, and highlighted the need for improved collaboration between ICBs to support hospices in the delivery of equitable palliative care. In this editorial, we examine how hospices have changed in recent years to meet complex needs at the end of life and how many have innovated to manage palliative care crisis; reducing the burden on overstretched hospital trusts and community services. The parliamentary debate raised the need for financial security so that hospices can continue to provide high-quality, person-centred care. We further call for increased research funding to provide a much-needed evidence base from which hospices can not only sustain but flourish.

The ‘Lancet Commission on the Value of Death’ encouraged us globally to ‘reimagine how death and dying could be’3 and how hospice care could develop to meet palliative care needs. While we acknowledge hospices are not the only provider of specialist palliative care, with an abundance of hospital-based palliative care teams, the vast majority of community specialist palliative care provision in England is delivered by charitably funded hospice …