Will the Cabinet Secretary confirm that funding to hospices will come directly from the Welsh Government rather than through local health boards under the proposed new national commissioning framework for hospice services?
Welsh Government is committed to working with hospices and the National Programme Board for Palliative and End-of-Life Care to find a sustainable financial funding settlement for Welsh hospices.
We are currently working with the NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee (JCC), the National Programme Board for Palliative and End-of-Life Care, and providers of hospice care, commissioned wholly or in part by NHS Wales or the Welsh Government, to develop a collaborative commissioning framework for hospice care. This is in line with the recommendations in the phase 3 interim review into palliative and end-of-life care in Wales to address funding challenges facing hospices. An assessment of the impact of the framework on hospice care providers will be considered as part of this work.
A development plan and timeline for the framework is being put together to guide the work, while ensuring it adheres to national policies and priorities.
The intention of the framework is not to provide the planned funding arrangements for the hospices but to define the intended services for commissioning and provide detail on uplifts and Agenda for Change and service level sgreements. The options for future funding arrangements will be reviewed and assessed as part of the commissioning framework. Therefore, it is too early to confirm what the planned funding arrangements for the hospice sector will be at this stage of the work.
It is the expectation that providers of hospice care, commissioned wholly or in part by NHS Wales or the Welsh Government, will support the co-production of the framework with health boards and will be consulted and updated on the development plan. A meeting with hospice care providers is currently planned for 11 July to discuss the exploratory work to date and to explore the next stage.
Some hospices provide services across health board boundaries and the impact will be considered in the development of the framework.