Chris Green MP: ​Hospices facing a funding crisis

Any and all governments will make mistakes but any fair minded person would say that Britain’s greatest problems were not narrowly created by the current Government.

You can only work to fix a problem if you understand its source. Take inflation as an example.

Gordon Brown, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, gave a certain level of independence to the Bank of England to set interest rates and it has had a target of using them as a mechanism to keep inflation to around two per cent.

In debates with me, Labour MPs have demanded that the Conservative Government cut inflation even when they know it was their leader who created the current system.

When I ask if they want the Government to take back the power that Gordon Brown handed over, they always reject the option.

The Bank of England has clearly failed in its job, but fixing the problem is more difficult than the shallow arguments put by Labour suggest.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered a surge in inflation but there was not much that the British Government could have done to prevent it. Indeed, all western governments and most military experts were taken by surprise.

Politicians need to be honest because we all know that Labour would not have been able to do a better job than the current Government.

Ben Wallace, as Defence Secretary, led the European response to this invasion and Labour have had nothing to say other than that he and the Government have been consistently right in all the big decisions.

Obviously, we are recovering from the impact of Covid-19 and the lockdowns too.

Labour’s only meaningful contribution to that crisis was to demand harsher lockdowns knowing that they would have denied more people access to essential health care, kept children out of school for longer and do more damage to the economy that has to fund our recovery.

One of the obvious problems created by the pandemic lockdowns was that, by preventing normal community activities, charitable fund-raising came to a complete halt.

This has had a dreadful impact on so many vital charities.

I recently visited the Wigan and Leigh Hospice to see and hear of the wonderful work that they and their team do.

Just as with Derian House children’s hospice and Bolton Hospice that serve my constituency, hospices are facing a crisis of funding.

Two thirds of the income that hospices take – more for children’s hospices – comes from voluntary donations whilst most of the rest comes from the NHS.

Lockdowns cut off almost all fund-raising activities and health devolution to the 42 Integrated Care Systems around England has caused further disruption.

I have written to the head of the NHS Integrated Care Board raising my concerns on behalf of the hospice movement and they need to ensure that the funding hospices normally receive is maintained.

There is a wider question over what their longer term funding structure ought to be.