St Columba’s Hospice Care and Marie Curie Edinburgh are warning that essential palliative and end-of-life care services are now at serious risk due to funding decisions made by the Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) and inaction by the Scottish Government.

The HSCP has chosen to reverse a 3% inflationary uplift in funding to hospices, which they committed to earlier in the year. This decision was taken in reaction to the Scottish Government announcement of an additional £5 million to help hospices address workforce pressures. That £5 million was solely intended to support hospices with the recruitment and retention of skilled staff during a time of extreme pressure, not to replace existing funding agreements.

This decision from HSCP undermines the purpose of the allocation and places essential palliative and end-of-life services across the Lothians at risk. To date, St Columba’s Hospice Care has not received its share of the £5 million, which is approximately £496,000. The delay is creating further financial uncertainty and threatening frontline services for patients and families.

We call on the Scottish Government and HSCP to:

• Reinstate the 3% inflationary uplift immediately.

• Release the national pay parity funding without delay.
• Commit to a national review of hospice funding to ensure equity and sustainability across Scotland.

Jackie Stone, CEO, St Columba’s Hospice Care, said: “Hospice’s are being pushed to make very difficult decisions that may impact on our patients and families. This reversal sends a devastating message to our staff and to the families we care for that fair pay and essential services are negotiable. They are not.

“The Scottish Government made a public commitment to fair pay and sustainable services, but we are being left with broken promises and growing deficits. We urge the Scottish Government and local partnerships to act now before we are forced to withdraw services that thousands of people across Edinburgh and the Lothians rely on every year.”

Hospices are an integral part of Scotland’s healthcare system and must be treated as such. They need sustainable, equitable funding. The government must act now to ensure a consistent national approach to hospice funding. Hospices deliver vital, high-quality care that the NHS relies on, and they must be supported, not penalised, for working to achieve fair pay for their staff.