Parliamentary Voices & Comments
Nearly 300 MPs and Peers. Different parties. One shared concern.
Across the political spectrum, Parliamentarians have described why they believe hospice and palliative care needs sustainable funding. These are some of their own words.
Parliamentary Voices
Richard Burgon MP — Labour
“My mum, grandma and auntie all passed away in a hospice. So I know just how important hospice care is. It’s vital hospice funding is made a national priority.”
Iqbal Mohamed MP — Independent
“Hospice care is not a luxury. A compassionate society is judged by how it cares for people at the most difficult moments of their lives. Hospices should not have to depend on bake sales and charitable fundraising to survive.”
Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP — Conservative
“The whole hospice movement is a remarkable system that grants support and help to adults and young children, providing remarkable end of life care to so many people.”
Wera Hobhouse MP — Liberal Democrat
“Hospices give people comfort, dignity and compassion in their final days, while helping families through the hardest moments they will ever face.”
Lord Monks — Labour
“We shall always be grateful to a hospice for the way it supported our dying son – and all the family too. They were magnificent.”
Baroness Fookes — Conservative
“The hospice movement provides a very special type of care that few hospitals can match.”
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath — Labour
“Hospices provide outstanding care, compassion and dignity for people approaching the end of life, while offering invaluable support to their families.”
Simon Hoare MP — Conservative
“I think it our national duty to champion the hospice movement to allow it not only to continue but to expand and flourish.”
John McDonnell MP — Labour
“A lack of funding should not deny people access to the vital caring services that hospices provide when families need them.”
Kim Johnson MP — Labour
“Sustainable funding matters because nobody facing the end of their life should have to worry about whether the care they need will be there. Every hospice matters because every life matters.”
Lord Alton of Liverpool — Crossbench
“This isn’t about left or right; it’s about right or wrong.”
The voices behind 100,000
Behind every signature is a reason.
Thousands of people haven’t just signed Every Hospice Matters. They have told us why.
They are patients approaching the end of their lives. Husbands, wives, sons and daughters who have experienced extraordinary hospice care. Others describe desperately wanting that same care for someone they loved, only to discover that a bed wasn’t available.
Don’t take our word for it. Read theirs.
Holly Child — Sevenoaks
“My lovely dad died in February of an aggressive, progressive cancer. He spent the last weeks of his life in hospital as we were unable to secure him a hospice bed… I believe dad would have been more comfortable in a hospice, where they’re expert at pain management.”
Karen Cooper — Poole
“I have stage 4 cancer… Basically I only have months left to live… Eventually I will need major pain relief and pretty constant monitoring so a hospice will be greatly beneficial to me. Please keep all hospices open at full capacity.”
Anna Ferrie — London
“Our local community palliative care hospice had recently closed all its beds and he died in a busy impersonal hospital ward without appropriate end of life care… I was fortunate that 20 years ago my father… had his last days in a lovely hospice… I weep at the difference now.”
Faye Sayers — Eastbourne
“My mum begged for a hospice bed. There were 21 beds, but only 7 were available because of cuts.”
Joanne — Manchester
“Hospitals didn’t have the capacity. The hospice did.”
Rachel — Leeds
“My dad’s final days were made so much easier by St Gemma’s Hospice.”
Georgina — Ripley
“I witnessed my own sister die in pain from not having the care she needed and dying at home.”
Diana — Hertfordshire
“My partner lived for months longer than expected thanks to our local hospice-at-home service.”
Mary — Glasgow
“It is only when you have a dying loved one that you realise the difference a hospice can make.”
Pat — Ellesmere Port
“Empty beds and staff shortages mean desperately ill people are losing the opportunity to receive the care they need.”
Lord Alton of Liverpool — Crossbench
“This isn’t about left or right; it’s about right or wrong.”
100,000 voices. Hundreds of personal stories. One request.
Make sustainable hospice funding a national priority.
Read all the public comments and add your own:
www.change.org/everyhospicematters