There's no doubt that we need more investment in Palliative and End of Life Care services in this country, of course including hospices as a key provider.
I find the term "hospice care" confusing. There is no single definition in the UK, and different hospices (ie charitable providers of Palliative and End of Life Care services) provide different things. Many people aspire to receiving care from a hospice at the end of their life but I'm not convinced they really know what this means.
Generally hospices focus on providing Specialist Palliative Care to dying people/families with the most complex needs, but they also often provide advice or education to the many other providers caring for people with less complex needs. A huge amount of care for people in their last year or so of life is actually provided by other health and social care professionals eg GPs, Geriatricians, District Nurses, Care Homes etc, receiving additional support if needed from Specialist Palliative Care Services (sometimes provided by charitable hospices, sometimes by NHS Specialist Palliative Care teams depending on what's available in a given area).
As non-NHS organisations, hospices can choose where to locate themselves (often decided many years ago by local philanthropists) and what services to provide. They may or may not provide inpatient care, community care, outpatients, education etc. For this reason the focus on equity in the new HUK strategy is very welcome. There are also many purely NHS funded Specialist Palliative Care services providing similar things which aren't called hospices and therefore don't fall under the Hospice UK umbrella.
Hospices are certainly key players in the palliative and end of life care ecosystem, with their charitable status allowing them the independence and flexibility to provide a higher standard of care than might be possible with meagre government funding alone.
Hopefully NHS commissioners have oversight of what services are needed where and use their scant budgets to fund provision of the services they feel are needed locally from whichever provider they feel is most appropriate - perhaps NHS, perhaps charity or other non-NHS/private provider.
Please do support your local hospice, but please also support improved funding for all health and social care services looking after people in their last year of life. Hospices are hugely important but they are just one (big) piece of a complex health and social care puzzle.
Hospice care for all who need it, for now and forever.
That's our vision as today we unveil a new five year strategy and refreshed brand.
With rising demand, funding pressures and staff shortages, our bold plan aims to meet the challenges head-on.
https://lnkd.in/eiz8Dpi7
President and CEO at The Association for Home & Hospice Care of North Carolina & The South Carolina Home Care & Hospice Association
3moCongrats from your state Hospice association and thanks for your support at SCHCHA