Petition over hospice bed closures handed in at Downing Street

Three Cambridgeshire MPs have delivered a petition to 10 Downing Street calling for funding to be restored to the Arthur Rank Hospice in Cambridge.

The petition, which has attracted more than 15,500 signatures, was handed in by South Cambridgeshire MP Pippa Heylings, Ely and East Cambridgeshire MP Charlotte Cane, and St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire MP Ian Sollom on Monday (3 November). They were joined by the Liberal Democrats’ spokesperson for health.

Arthur Rank Hospice provides specialist end-of-life and palliative care for patients across Cambridgeshire. The organisation is set to lose £829,000 in funding from Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) NHS Foundation Trust due to pressures on its budget, which is allocated by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Integrated Care System.

According to the hospice, the reduction would result in the closure of nine of its 23 beds, leaving an estimated 200 patients a year without access to hospice care and adding pressure to local hospital wards.

The MPs were accompanied outside Downing Street by several constituents whose relatives have been supported by the hospice, as well as a current patient.

In a joint statement, the MPs said the petition called on the Government to restore funding to keep all beds open, provide long-term sustainable support for palliative services, and ensure community-based care is properly rolled out.

They said:

“Everyone deserves access to excellent care right up until the very end of their lives. We must not let a funding failure deny dying patients and their families the dignity and support they deserve.”

South Cambridgeshire MP Pippa Heylings has also written to Secretary of State for Health Wes Streeting urging the Government to protect funding for the hospice.

The party’s health spokesperson, Helen Morgan, said the situation reflected national pressures on hospice provision. She said: “No one should spend their final days in pain, on a crowded hospital ward, or alone – simply because ministers failed to act.”

The Liberal Democrats are calling for funding to be allocated based on local need, ring-fenced support for children’s hospices, and further assistance to protect bereavement services. They also want the most recent rise in national insurance contributions reversed, saying it has cost hospices £34 million nationally.

The Department of Health and Social Care has been contacted for comment.

Listen to Ian Sollom MP talking to Black Cat Radio. He explains when he first became aware of the cuts to funding: