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Children’s Hospices

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South on securing this important Adjournment debate. I am sure that he is aware that I have tabled early-day motions on the subject and had a similar Adjournment debate in the last Parliament. I am pleased to see the Minister in his place, because he replied to that debate as well. The crux of the problem is that children’s hospices receive only about 7 per cent. of their funding from the NHS, whereas adult hospices receive about 33 per cent. of their funding from the NHS. It is unfair to compare adult hospices with children’s hospices, as the Minister said in the previous debate and today. Nevertheless, the fact is that adult hospices generally have to deal with only one, two or three primary care trusts because they generally represent one town—for example, the St. Peter’s hospice in Barnsley and the Doncaster hospice—while children’s hospices can be covered by up to 33 PCTs. The onus should be on the PCT to contact the children’s hospice to set up an agreement rather than the other way round.