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Children’s Hospices

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising those issues, which I hope to cover in my speech. It is incredibly frustrating that staff who do a fantastic job in this sector do not receive the recognition and support that they need from the PCTs whereas our communities are supporting them all the way. I shall take a typical example, that of the engagement of Treetops children’s hospice which is in my constituency, with the 10 PCTs in the area that the hospice serves. For the record, I am delighted to have been asked to serve as an unpaid member of the Donna Louise trust, which supports the work of Treetops. The Government have an excellent record on working to meet the needs of children. Indeed, they introduced the excellent national service framework for children as part of the ““Every Child Matters”” initiative. That document set out a requirement for local statutory services to work with organisations such as children’s hospices on the planning, funding and commissioning of local services. In practice, however, of the 10 PCTs contacted by Treetops—it was Treetops that initiated the contact, not the PCTs—only five agreed to face-to-face contact. One PCT has not replied to any letters and, in some cases, it took many months before a reply was extracted from the remaining four. Those replies basically said that the PCT was not interested. So much for full engagement by PCTs with service providers. How much have the five PCTs that met Treetops contributed to the hospice services that are recognised as important by the framework? One PCT chief executive asked that very question, and was suitably shame-faced when he was told, ““Absolutely nothing.”” Incidentally, he has not put the situation right. How much do PCTs pay Treetops for supporting about 135 life-limited children and their families, more than half of whom are referrals from the PCTs themselves?