The bill requires the Secretary of State to conduct a targeted review of how hospices that specialise in caring for children are funded in England and to report the findings to Parliament within one year of the Act’s passage. The review must assess funding adequacy and equity, examine the current funding model, consider centrally distributed funding, and analyse the role of integrated care boards (ICBs) and long-term funding security.
After the review is tabled, the Secretary of State must publish concrete proposals within three months that aim to guarantee access to children’s hospices across England and secure long-term funding and consistent quality of palliative care. The Act is procedural: it compels analysis and recommendations rather than prescribing specific funding changes or creating new funding streams by itself — but it sets statutory deadlines, consultation requirements, and a parliamentary reporting sequence that could shape subsequent policy or legislation.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill obliges the Secretary of State to carry out a statutory review of children’s hospice funding in England and to publish proposals, informed by that review, for measures that will guarantee access and secure long-term funding. The review must consider current funding models, levels of Government support, centrally distributed funding, the impact of integrated care boards, and long-term sustainability.
Who It Affects
Children’s hospices and their staff, NHS integrated care boards and regional commissioners, families of children needing palliative care, and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) as the body responsible for conducting the review and laying reports in Parliament. Hospices that rely heavily on charitable income are the primary focus.
Why It Matters
The bill creates a statutory process that could force a national conversation about replacing patchwork commissioning and charity-dependent models with more uniform, sustainable arrangements. For policy teams and compliance officers, the timelines, consultation scope, and topics the review must cover define the parameters for any future funding reforms.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill establishes a two-step statutory duty for the Secretary of State. First, Ministers must conduct a review of children’s hospice funding in England that looks at whether current funding levels and arrangements give equitable access to high-quality palliative care.
The review’s scope is specified: it must evaluate the existing funding model, measure the adequacy of government funding, assess the case for centrally distributed funding, examine how the integrated care board model affects hospice income and commissioning, and consider long-term financial security for the sector.
The Secretary of State must consult with three named groups: relevant healthcare providers, hospice care workers, and parent and patient organisations. That narrows but does not close the consultation path; Ministers may invite other stakeholders but the statute explicitly requires these voices.
The bill mandates that the Secretary of State lay the review report before Parliament within one year of the Act’s passage, creating a firm deadline for the administration to produce both analysis and evidence-informed findings.Second, once the review is laid, the Secretary of State has three months to publish proposals to guarantee access to children’s hospices and secure long-term funding. Those proposals must take the review’s conclusions into account, include measures to stabilise funding across England, and set out steps to ensure consistent, high-quality palliative care irrespective of location.
The bill does not itself allocate funds or change commissioning law; it creates a required process that could lead to future primary legislation, statutory guidance, or funding commitments by government.The Act’s territorial reach covers England and Wales, but the review’s substantive focus is on hospices in England. The Act comes into force on the day it is passed and may be cited as the Children’s Hospices (Funding) Act 2024.
Practically, the legislation is short and directive: it requires analysis, stakeholder engagement and timely reporting; it leaves policy choices — including whether to centralise funding or to mandate new entitlements — to subsequent government decisions following the review and proposals.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Secretary of State must complete and lay a review of children’s hospice funding in Parliament within one year of the Act’s passage.
The review must explicitly consider centrally distributed funding and the effect of the integrated care board (ICB) commissioning model on children’s hospice finances.
The Secretary of State must consult three stakeholder groups by name: relevant healthcare providers, hospice care workers, and parent and patient groups.
Within three months after the review is laid, the Secretary of State must publish proposals to guarantee access to hospices and secure long-term funding and quality of care.
The Act extends to England and Wales, but the statutory review is limited to hospices in England and therefore does not mandate a similar review for Wales.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Statutory review of children’s hospice funding
This section imposes a duty on the Secretary of State to review funding for children’s hospices in England and sets the analytical framework for that review. It requires assessment of funding adequacy and equitable access, and lists specific topics the review must cover: the current funding model, Government funding levels, the merits of central distribution of funds, the integrated care board model’s impact, and long-term security. For implementers, these prescribed topics limit what Ministers can ignore and shape the evidence-gathering exercise required of the Department of Health and Social Care.
Consultation duties and parliamentary reporting deadline
This portion requires the Secretary of State to consult three types of stakeholders—healthcare providers, hospice workers, and parent/patient groups—during the review and to lay a written report before Parliament within one year of enactment. The statutory consultation list guarantees that frontline providers and families must be involved; however, it does not create a formal process for how responses are considered. The one-year deadline is a hard timeline that will determine the scale and pace of evidence collection, modelling and engagement work within the department.
Obligation to publish proposals to guarantee access and funding
After the review is laid, the Secretary of State must publish proposals within three months aimed at guaranteeing access to children’s hospices and securing long-term funding and consistent quality. The proposals must ‘have regard to’ the review, which legally requires Ministers to consider but does not bind them to adopt specific recommendations. This section creates a short statutory window for government to translate analysis into policy options, increasing public and parliamentary pressure for concrete measures.
Territorial scope, commencement and title
This technical section states that the Act extends to England and Wales, comes into force on the day it is passed, and provides the short title. The combination is notable: although the Act applies territorially to England and Wales, all operative duties focus on hospices 'in England.' That divergence matters for Welsh stakeholders and for officials who must determine whether similar action is required in Wales.
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Explore Healthcare in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Children requiring palliative care and their families — the bill creates a statutory route to identify and propose measures aimed at guaranteeing access and improving equity of care across England.
- Children’s hospices — the mandated review could surface funding shortfalls and elevate proposals for longer-term, potentially more reliable funding streams that reduce reliance on charitable income.
- Parent and patient advocacy groups — the statutory consultation requirement ensures they are formally part of the evidence base and raises the political salience of their concerns.
Who Bears the Cost
- Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) — the department must design, resource and deliver the review and the follow-up proposals within tight statutory deadlines, which will require staff time and analytical capacity.
- Integrated care boards and NHS commissioners — if proposals recommend funding model changes or centralisation, ICBs may need to reconfigure commissioning budgets and processes, incurring transitional costs.
- Treasury/Government — while the bill does not itself commit funds, any eventual move to guarantee access or to provide long-term funding will create fiscal pressure that the Treasury would need to meet.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is whether to secure equitable, nationally predictable funding for children’s hospices — which argues for centralised, ring-fenced support — or to preserve local commissioning flexibility under ICBs, which can tailor services to local needs but risks geographic inequities and charity dependence; the bill forces a review of that trade-off but does not resolve it, leaving Ministers to choose between national uniformity and regional discretion under fiscal constraints.
The bill mandates analysis and proposals but stops short of prescribing funding changes or statutory entitlements, which creates a twofold implementation risk: it may raise expectations among families and hospices without guaranteeing follow-through, and it places the burden on Ministers to translate review findings into concrete spending decisions. The requirement to consult three categories of stakeholders is helpful, but the statute sets no formal standard for evidence, no requirement for public consultation timetable, and no obligation to publish raw data or regulatory impact assessments alongside the report or proposals.
The Act’s territorial language creates an awkward mismatch: it extends to England and Wales but restricts the review to hospices in England. That leaves Welsh hospices and their governments outside the statutory review mechanism and raises questions about how cross-border services or families near borders will be treated.
Another unresolved issue is definitional: the statute relies on terms like 'adequate funding' and 'high-quality palliative care' without metrics. Departments will need to define measurable thresholds for adequacy and quality, build a baseline dataset, and model costs — tasks that are resource-intensive and time-consuming and that may reveal difficult trade-offs between national equity and local flexibility.
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