100 days in, on World Hospice and Palliative Care day, what has the Labour government done for dying people?

12 October 2024, 16:19

Today is World Hospice and Palliative Care Day. It also marks exactly one hundred days that the new Labour government have been in power. So, in those first 100 days, what has Labour done for dying people?

On 6 July, Wes Streeting made a bold declaration in his first speech as health secretary ‘the NHS is broken’ – a claim he’s stuck to belligerently despite criticism it will impact staff morale and patient trust.

But does Streeting’s claim also include palliative and end of life care? We truly hope so.

Through our work, we regularly try to highlight that end of life care is equally in crisis.

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While 9 in 10 people dying in the UK today need palliative care, estimates suggest in England up to 25% of those who need palliative care are not receiving it.

On 11 July, Streeting announced the Darzi review, which would ‘provide patients, staff and myself a full and frank assessment of the state of the NHS, warts and all.’

The report, later published on 12 September, declared that the NHS is in ‘critical condition’ - a stark diagnosis that’s especially true for palliative care.

Our recent Better End of Life report ‘Time to care’ revealed that one in five people had no contact with a GP during the last 3 months of their life, and more than one in three people were severely or overwhelmingly affected by pain in their final week of life.

Bereaved people in our report repeatedly stated how difficult it was to get joined-up support from health and care services at home, with many having to rely on overrun A&E departments.

It evidences that whilst the number of people who need palliative and end of life care is increasing steeply, our health and care system is already struggling to meet that demand.

We were pleased to see palliative and end of life care not wholly overlooked in the Darzi report, but now we would like to see this critical and often overlooked area of care feature heavily in the NHS 10-year plan.

The overall framing of the report was well received and certainly echoes Marie Curie's focus on our ageing population and the need to improve access to quality care in the community to prevent pressures on ambulance teams, A&E departments and hospitals.

There is clear evidence that good quality palliative and end of life care in the community not only helps patients and families, but also reduces unplanned hospital admissions and the number of days patients spend in hospital.

A&E visits and hospital stays are distressing for patients and their families and create significant pressures on NHS budgets and resources.

69% (371,594) of all people who died in 2022, spent time in hospital during the six months before they died, staying for a total of 8.4 million days in hospital. Marie Curie estimates the total cost of these admissions to be more than £2.9bn each year.

Ensuring palliative and end of life care (PEOLC) is fully funded is of profound importance.

The sector is financially vulnerable, relying heavily on fundraising from generous individuals, groups and corporate partnerships.

The design and delivery of end of life care has huge implications for public spending with around a third of NHS costs accrued in the last year of life.

Finally, last week on 3 October, news broke of Kim Leadbeater’s forthcoming Private Members Bill on assisted dying.

This Bill will force MPs to take a close up look at the experiences of dying people across the UK - experiences which are all too often obscured from political vision.

And when they do, they might be in for an unpleasant wake up call, as they realise that our country already denies too many people the care and support they need at the end of life.

So what do we need now from our new government?

First, we need immediate support from the Autumn budget. Particularly, we need to see budget allocated to cover the 5.5% NHS Pay Award for non-NHS providers of NHS services, such as Marie Curie which is set to add huge financial pressures to an already struggling sector.

Secondly, we need to ensure that the Comprehensive Spending Review provides a significant and long-term investment to enable the strategic transformation of palliative care services in all corners of the country. Only then will the new UK government be able to realise its vision to shift more healthcare out of hospitals and into the community.