6. How is the Welsh Government supporting the palliative care sector in Wales? (OAQ51226)

The updated end-of-life care delivery plan, published in March, sets out the extensive range of actions we are taking to deliver a collaborative approach to improving end-of-life care throughout Wales. That includes £6.4 million to provide specialist palliative care services.

Thanks for your answer. As you are probably aware, the majority of end-of-life care in Wales is provided by Wales’s 13 adult and two children’s hospices. You indicate a figure of roughly £6.4 million—that’s what I think you said—but they spend £32.5 million a year to deliver those services in people’s homes, and also day care and respite. So, they are having to raise over £2 million a month, and they’re keen to help you, the Welsh Government, and their local health boards do very much more. How can you, or will you, engage with them and ask them how they can help you achieve more? Perhaps a little bit more funding from the health boards and the Government would save massively more for health boards and liberate services to help tackle some of the other problems we’ve heard referred to today in different contexts.

Well, if we look at the recent report by Hospice UK into hospice care in Wales, that is something that we welcome—what the report said. It recognises the positive steps outlined in the palliative and end-of-life care delivery plan. It does highlight the need for assurances about long-term funding. As part of the budget agreement with Plaid Cymru, we did make £1 million extra available in 2017 to further enhance end-of-life care provision. That is recurrent funding as well. But, of course, in terms of engagement with the sector, it is the care boards that provide that level of engagement, and that’s why, of course, we work with them in order to identify the resources that are needed.

The cross-party group on hospices and palliative care here in the Assembly is looking at the possibility of holding an inquiry into how to deal with inequalities in terms of access to hospice care in Wales. You referred to the funding secured in agreement between us and the Government. But, isn’t the truth of the matter that a series of Labour Governments has failed to tackle that fundamental element, that there is inequality in terms of access to this crucial care across Wales?

No, I don’t accept that. We have ensured that there is investment available to the health boards. It’s a matter for them, of course, to ensure that the service is available. It’s something that we worked with them on to ensure that that is implemented. We know that the hospices themselves have taken a greater role over the past five years than previously, not just on the care side, but in giving people advice as well. And now, of course, we wish to work with the boards to ensure that we know what next needs to be done, in order to ensure that there is a uniform service available throughout Wales.