MS, Cabinet Secretary for
Health and Social Care: Hospices play a pivotal and deeply valued
role in Wales, providing compassionate, person‑centred care to
people with life‑limiting conditions and at the end of their
lives.
We are committed to ensuring everyone who needs palliative and
end‑of‑life care can access timely, high‑quality support, which
meets their needs, preferences and circumstances, wherever they
need it.
Over the course of this Senedd term, we have prioritised a
significant programme of work to strengthen palliative and
end-of-life care, in partnership with hospices, the NHS and the
wider sector. This has included increased funding, strengthened
leadership, workforce development and investment in bereavement
services.
Today, I am launching an approach to the
Commissioning of Hospice Care in Wales, which has been
developed by the Joint Commissioning Committee and the Strategic
Programme for Palliative and End‑of‑Life Care.
While hospices make a vital contribution to our health and care
system, delivering specialist inpatient and community‑based
services, the commissioning arrangements have developed
consistently over time, resulting in variation in access, funding
approaches and long‑term sustainability across Wales.
The new guidance is an important step forward, setting out shared
commissioning principles, clarifying expectations of good
practice, and providing practical direction for commissioners and
providers over the short, medium and long term.
It also lays the foundations for further work, including a
national needs assessment, the development of a core service
specification, and a move towards a more sustainable national
commissioning model from next year.
It will ensure all hospice services are:
- Based on assessed population need
- High quality and outcome-focused
- Commissioned equitably across health boards
- Transparent and proportionate in funding and reporting
- Financially sustainable over the long term.
I am also today providing additional in-year financial support
for hospices to help them meet the challenges caused by rising
energy costs, workforce shortages, and increasing demand and
complexity of care.
I am providing an additional £4.3m to help stabilise children's
and adult hospice services across Wales. This will support
providers to maintain essential services, protect staffing
capacity, and ensure continuity of high‑quality care for patients
and families at a critical time. This is on top of the £3m annual
uplift to hospice funding in the 2025-26 Welsh Budget and means
we have provided more than £25m in extra funding to support
hospices over the course of this Senedd.
Taken together, the stabilisation funding and the commissioning
approach is a package of support for the hospice sector –
providing immediate financial relief while setting a clear,
evidence‑based pathway towards longer‑term sustainability and
equity.
Under the leadership of the national programme and working
closely with health boards, hospices and people with lived
experience, we will continue to tackle the challenges ahead of
us, while focusing on delivering person‑centred, high‑quality
palliative and end‑of‑life care for everyone who needs it in
Wales.
