Hospice calls for 'fair funding' as demand rises

A children's hospice in Huddersfield which supports youngsters with life-shortening illnesses has said it needs better funding from the NHS.

Forget me Not Hospice said demand for its services is growing but the charity's current income is not rising to meet its operating costs.

A report released today by the charity Together for Short Lives found average hospice costs have grown by 18% but funding from local NHS trusts has not matched the increase.

The government will publish a new framework to modernise and improve the palliative and end of life care sector in the autumn and said it has made the "biggest investment in hospices in a generation".

Forget Me Not provides services including working with parents through pregnancy, nursing care for babies and children, end of life care and bereavement support and counselling. The hospice is currently supporting around 180 local families.

Its management said that for 2026/2027 its outlay was £7m, 80% of which is self-generated through fundraising and its charity shops.

Forget Me Not chief executive, Gareth Pierce, said more families now need the hospice's help, but rising costs were affecting the charity's ability to support them, leaving them with "heartbreaking" funding decisions.

"Demand is growing in both scale and complexity. Children are being diagnosed earlier and living longer with more complex conditions – which should mean more support, not less. Yet we're having to reduce services at precisely the moment families need us most."

Together for Short Lives, an organisation which campaigns around issues affecting families with children who have serious illnesses, published its new report highlighting what it said is "growing pressure" on children's hospices.

The charity's research found that 60% of hospices ended 2025/26 with an operating deficit and it warned that without action, more hospices would be forced to cut down on support for families - and that those in need were being "let down".

The charity's chief executive, Nick Carroll, called current NHS funding models "unfair and unsustainable" and instead asked the government to fill the £310m "children's palliative care funding gap".

A spokesperson for the Department for Health and Social Care said: "Hospices do incredible work to support people and families when they need it most and are facing incredibly tough pressures."

They added that the government had invested £125m to improve hospice facilities, "freeing other funding for patient care", while committing £80m for children's hospices over the next three years.

The department added that a new framework due to be published later this year would modernise the sector as it would "shift more healthcare out of hospitals and into the community, with hospices playing a central role in delivering care closer to home".

Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.