20
Accepted
The Department and NHS England agreed that there are gaps in provision of palliative and...
Conclusion
The Department and NHS England agreed that there are gaps in provision of palliative and end of life care and that it must meet demand where it is needed.39 They also acknowledged the importance of moving care away from costly acute settings into the community, citing a dashboard that they use to track patients who are receiving care but may not need to be in hospital.40 Professor Murtagh told us that around 500,000 people die in England each year, and of these around 42% do so in hospitals, where many people do not want or need to be and which is typically more expensive than other settings. Some 28% die at home, which is where most people would prefer to be, while 21% die in care homes and 5% in hospices.41 She also highlighted the disproportionate flow of end-of-life funding that goes to the acute sector. On average, £22,000 is spent per person in the last year of their life, with 78% going to the acute hospital sector, approximately 5% to the hospice sector, and 4% to other partners in formal healthcare, including the ambulance service and district and community nursing.42 36 Q 6 37 Qq 12 and 24 38 Q 30 39 Qq 29, 38 and 80 40 Qq 34, 39 and 49 41 Professor Fliss Murtagh (AHE0020) 42 Q 5 14
Government Response Summary
The government accepts the implied recommendation to address gaps in palliative and end-of-life care provision and to rebalance funding away from the acute sector. It plans to achieve this through the Palliative Care and End-of-Life Care MSF by Autumn 2026, which will include metrics to reduce avoidable hospital admissions and unnecessary bed days, building on existing frameworks with a 10% target for these improvements.
Government Response
Accepted
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
4.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: Autumn 2026 4.2 The government is determined to shift more healthcare out of hospitals and into the community, to ensure patients and their families receive personalised care in the most appropriate setting, and palliative care and end-of-life care services, including hospices, will have a big role to play in that shift. 4.3 The government is developing a Palliative Care and End‑of‑Life Care MSF which will support the shift to strategic commissioning based on integrated needs assessments. The MSF will outline evidenced based interventions and will include metrics that will focus on reduction of clinically avoidable non‑elective admissions and unnecessary bed days for people at the end of life. 4.4 The MSF will build on Medium Term Planning Framework, which made clear that ICBs and relevant NHS providers should ensure an understanding of current and projected total service utilisation and costs, including for those with palliative care and end-of-life care needs, and create an overall plan to more effectively manage the needs of these high-priority cohorts and significantly reduce avoidable unplanned admissions. 4.5 It will also build on the recently published Neighbourhood Health Framework, which sets clear expectations for the improvement of care of palliative care and end-of-life care patients through Neighbourhood Health. This set the ambition is to systems to increase in the number of people identified as approaching end of life by 10%, alongside a reducing the number of non-elective admissions and bed days of one day or over for people in the end of the life cohort by 10%.
Source
Committee
Public Accounts Committee
Report
73rd Report - Financial sustainability of adult hospices in England
18 Mar 2026
HC 1236
Addressee Bodies
HM Treasury
Timeline
Recommendation age
0.4 yrs
Report published
18 Mar 2026