Debate contribution: Children's Hospice

Debate contribution by Mr Robin Swann on 12 February 2024.

MLA: Mr Robin Swann
Party at the time: Ulster Unionist Party
Date: 12 February 2024
Type: Debate contribution (made as a minister)
Business: Questions for Urgent Oral Answer
Heading: Children's Hospice
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4218287

Text

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for facilitating this question for urgent oral answer. I recognise and applaud the vital work of the Northern Ireland Children's Hospice and all hospices in Northern Ireland. Last week, my officials engaged in detailed discussions with the Northern Ireland Children's Hospice. It is clear to me that the financial pressures facing the Northern Ireland Children's Hospice go much deeper than any reduction of departmental support. The reduction involved the ending last summer of an additional but temporary annual payment of £170,000.
The temporary payment that was in place since 2018 was to assist the hospice following the closure of a facility in Fermanagh called Horizon West. The funding was for three years, and it was used by the hospice to support the cost of a bed in Belfast. Due to COVID, the funding was extended for a further two years until the end of March 2023. The decision to cease the payment was notified to the Children's Hospice in June 2023 and took effect from September last year. That resulted in a reduction of £85,000. I took the decision on Friday to reinstate that funding in full for this year, as I had committed to respond by the end of last week. That payment is in addition to the core annual funding of £1·6 million, which my Department is providing directly to the Children's Hospice this year. That core funding also included £420,000 that had not been recurrent, meaning that it had to be subject to confirmation each year. I can also confirm that it will be made recurrent, which will give the hospice greater certainty, because I am keenly aware that the financial challenges facing the Northern Ireland Children's Hospice go much deeper than this year or next year. Like all healthcare providers, it has encountered significantly rising running costs, reflecting inflationary pressures. Regrettably, the Children's Hospice has advised my Department that the restoration of the full £170,000 for this year will not lead to the reversal of the service reduction that was made public this week. The Children's Hospice and the Northern Ireland Hospice parent body will need to develop longer-term solutions, of which, I am sure, the Government will want to be supportive. Given the current absence of a Budget for next year and the well-documented financial uncertainties and challenges for the Government, my Department is currently at the limit of what it can do, but I am also very conscious that other hospice organisations and many other health and care providers are also grappling with growing budget pressures and will be seeking further statutory finance. I am grateful for the support from and the personal interest of the First Minister and deputy First Minister regarding the Children's Hospice's position. I am also aware of the fact that other Northern Ireland Departments have provided financial support to the Children's Hospice in the past, but I believe that the long-term need for financial stability across the whole hospice sector would benefit from cross-departmental input, helping to assist organisations in identifying sustainable ways forward. Consequently, I have written to the Finance Minister to seek further discussions between the charities and our two Departments.
I thank the Member for his offer to continue working constructively. That is the relationship that we had in the previous mandate. As I said at the end of my answer, there needs to be a wider discussion, not just across government but with my Department and the Minister of Finance, about how we support all hospice provision. We need to look at the Children's Hospice and how it looks after respite care as well as palliative care. The palliative care section of the Children's Hospice has not been affected by this, so it is about the respite care. There needs to be a wider conversation about palliative care across the entirety of the hospice provision. The unfortunate situation that we have seen with the Children's Hospice enables that conversation to be had at a very early stage of this Government about what needs to be done and what can be done cross-departmentally and with the Opposition's support.
I thank the Member for making that point. It is about the wider conversation around palliative care and respite care and how we work with other hospices. There has been much said about the 50:50 nature of the funding and the understanding that we have with the adult hospices that is not carried across to the Children's Hospice. That is a carry-over from direct rule, from Gordon Brown's time in 2004, I believe. It goes back quite a while. That relationship and that understanding about funding predates previous Health Ministers who have been involved in conversations with the hospice, so, while my Department has the lead, and I am not in any way shirking that fact, there is a wider cross-governmental remit in regard to how we make sure that the funding is in place for hospices. The challenge in funding hospices is an example of what we are seeing in funding for Health generally, as I do not have a budget at this time. Part of the challenge for the Children's Hospice was the fact that a large proportion of funding was non-recurrent, but we have been able to make that recurrent.
I thank the Member. I have not received a response as yet, but, as the Member will know, the issue moved very quickly last week — from early engagement with the First Minister and deputy First Minister to a meeting on the Tuesday night about how we, as an Executive, should approach the issue. As for the specifics of my budgetary bid, the Member will be well aware that I indicated last year that, even if we get a flat cash budget that rolls into the next financial year, we are already looking at a deficit of £1 billion because of pay pressures, inflationary Health pressures and everything else, so I will need to have a wider conversation with my ministerial colleagues to make sure that all parties that committed their support to Health prior to the restoration of the Assembly last week honour that commitment.
I welcome the new Chair of the Health Committee to her position and appreciate the engagement that we had this morning. Mr Speaker, I want to correct the record. It was not Gordon Brown but Des Browne who was Minister at that time. I got a wee bit carried away there. The policy position on the funding of hospices, including the adult hospice — the 50:50 — was implemented in 2004 and has not changed. The current funding of children's respite services is, as the Member said, in the region of 70:30, which is 70% coming from hospice provision. However, the current funding of children's community services is more closely aligned to the 50:50. The decision last week to make the non-recurrent funding of £420,000 recurrent should start to move that dial a little bit, but there needs to be a realignment in the relationship that we have with the Northern Ireland Hospice, which is the parent body for the Children's Hospice. Again, that is part of the conversation on the larger funding package and the support for palliative and respite care.
The Member will know that, as the Health Minister for Northern Ireland, I am always an optimist. That is why I took the job on for a second time: I believe in the health service of Northern Ireland and in the commitments and expressions of support that we received prior to the restoration on Saturday a week ago that health would be a priority for all parties in the Chamber, be they in the Executive or the Opposition. It is about how we move, over the next few weeks and months, when we see the outworkings of the Budget and how money is divided between Departments to deal with the pressures that are being witnessed. I sincerely hope that the other Executive parties and the Opposition do not make health a political football. We did not do that in the last mandate, and I hope that we will not do it in this one.

1,361 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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