Skip to content
Make a Donation Find a shop
Make a Donation Find a shop

Gareth’s blog: An open letter to the Chancellor

Following the Budget last week, in his latest blog our CEO calls for children’s hospice care not to be left to chance

Gareth’s blog: An open letter to the Chancellor

A white female member of the family support team wearing scrubs and smiling at a young girl with blonder hair who she is holding on her hip outside in a garden

Last week’s Budget promised “breathing space” today and “hope for the future”. There were measures that will help some families, and these are welcome. But it offered no reassurance about the sustainable funding of children’s hospice care.

At a time when the NHS is looking to move more care out of hospitals and into communities, that feels like a significant missed opportunity. Children’s hospices like Forget Me Not are ready to play an even greater role, but we need the right foundations and funding to make that possible.

So I have written an open letter to the Chancellor, asking the Government not to leave essential care for children and families to chance.

Don’t leave children’s hospice care to chance

Dear Chancellor,

Your Budget promised “breathing space” today and “hope for the future”.

That is exactly what children’s hospices provide.

We give exhausted parents room to breathe. We help children and families make the most of their time together. And when the unimaginable happens, we make sure families are not left to face it alone.

There were measures in the Budget that will help some families, including changes to Carer’s Allowance and support with energy costs, and these are welcome.

But your Budget offered no reassurance about the future funding of children’s hospice care.

That was a missed opportunity.

At Forget Me Not, we support babies, children and young people with life-shortening conditions, alongside their families. Our care is specialist, essential and often needed over many years.

Yet children’s hospices are still expected to plan vital services without the certainty of fair, sustainable statutory funding.

That cannot continue.

It is particularly difficult to understand at a time when the direction of travel for the NHS is so clear: more care delivered closer to home and in communities rather than hospitals wherever possible.

Children’s hospices like Forget Me Not are already part of that solution. We have the expertise, relationships and community presence to care for children and families at home, in our hospice, in hospital and alongside other health and care services.

We stand ready to do more.

But we cannot build the services that children, families and the NHS will increasingly need without the right foundations beneath us. Sustainable funding should enable children’s hospices to strengthen and expand their services, working alongside NHS colleagues to provide more care closer to home and help families avoid unnecessary stays in hospital.

Instead, too many children’s hospices face difficult decisions about reducing services simply to balance the books.

At precisely the moment when our health system needs more care in communities, we should be growing the capacity of children’s hospices, not shrinking it.

At precisely the moment when our health system needs more care in communities, we should be growing the capacity of children’s hospices, not shrinking it.

Gareth Pierce, CEO

We are incredibly fortunate to have generous supporters across West Yorkshire. They donate, volunteer, fundraise and stand beside local families.

But their generosity should not be expected to fill a structural gap in the funding of essential care.

Families should not have to depend on the success of the next appeal or fundraising event to know that specialist support will be there when they need it.

Together for Short Lives has highlighted the need for greater investment in children’s palliative care and the importance of supporting families to care for their children at home, helping to reduce costly, unplanned emergency stays in hospital.

Across the wider hospice sector, including both adult and children’s hospices, Hospice UK has called for an immediate annual funding increase of £112.5 million, alongside fair NHS contracts and proper support for hospice staff pay. These are practical steps that would give hospices greater stability and help protect and strengthen care for the people and families who rely on them.

We recognise that government faces difficult choices. At Forget Me Not, we face difficult choices too. We work hard to use every pound responsibly, adapt our services and plan carefully for the future.

But efficiency cannot replace proper investment. Kindness cannot close a structural funding gap. And hope alone cannot keep essential services running.

So, Chancellor, I invite you or one of your ministerial colleagues to visit Forget Me Not.

Come and meet the children and families we support, speak to our colleagues and volunteers and see for yourself what children’s hospice care makes possible.

A visit would also offer valuable insight into the contribution children’s hospices make beyond our own walls: supporting children at home, working alongside hospitals and other health and care services, and helping families receive the right support in the right place.

It would show both what children’s hospices already contribute and the potential we have to do so much more as the NHS moves more care from hospitals into communities.

Children’s hospice care is not an optional extra. It is an essential part of the health and care landscape and can be an even bigger part of the solution to the challenges ahead.

Families need it today, and our health and care system will need strong community services tomorrow.

Please don’t leave that to chance.

Yours sincerely,
Gareth Pierce
Chief Executive, Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice

Children’s hospice care is not an optional extra. It is an essential part of the health and care landscape and can be an even bigger part of the solution to the challenges ahead.

Gareth Pierce, CEO