Sector news and updates

To help make sure we are being effective as your membership body, and to help us monitor our progress against the delivery of our strategy, we would love you to fill in our annual membership survey, which will take you a few minutes.

We would like to hear from as many people as possible who work in a Hospice UK member organisation, so please share it with your colleagues and trustees.

The deadline to complete this survey is Tuesday 30 June.

Fill out our survey

We would like to congratulate Teesside Hospice and Butterwick Hospice on their decision to merge, which will provide people across the Tees Valley and County Durham with access to high-quality end of life care and support the long-term sustainability of services.

By combining their strengths and working in partnership, the two hospices aim to strengthen services across their communities and respond to growing demand.

We look forward to seeing how this partnership develops and to sharing learning from this and other collaborations across the sector.

On Thursday 14 May, James Murray MP was appointed as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, following Wes Streeting's resignation. James Murray has previously held roles in the treasury, most recently as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. 
 
Alongside this, last week the government held the King's Speech, where they laid out their legislative agenda for the coming parliamentary session. Within this an NHS Modernisation Bill has been announced.
 
The main aim of this bill is to legally abolish NHS England and move its responsibilities back into the Department of Health and Social Care. The Bill is also going to:

• build the single patient record across health and social care.
• transfer the Health Services Safety and Investigations Body into the Care Quality Commission.
• transfer responsibilities for all but the most specialised commissioning functions to ICBs.
• transfer local Healthwatch functions to ICBs and Local Authorities.

As more information is shared from the department we will continue to update about what the new legislation will mean for hospices.
 
If you have any questions, please do email the policy team.

Hospice UK has been invited to send a senior speaker at the upcoming National Association of Care Catering (NACC) Conference later this year. As part of our preparation, we are keen to gather insights and examples of outstanding catering from across our membership.

We would love to hear from any members who can share positive stories about their catering teams and the services they provide to patients and their loved ones. In particular, any feedback received about the impact of these services would be incredibly valuable. Photos are particularly welcome.

We are also keen to highlight examples of cafés or catering facilities that are open to the public, particularly where these have supported income generation while also helping to break down barriers and misconceptions about hospice care. Again, photographs or case examples would be very welcome.

If you have any examples or would be happy to contribute, please get in touch.

This year, we are proud to be a charity partner of Celebration Day 2026. 

Celebration Day is built on a simple but powerful idea: pausing on the last Monday in May to remember and celebrate the people who made us who we are today. They may be loved ones we’ve lost or figures from history, but they are the people who inspired us, shaped our values, and continue to live on through us.  

Our Compassionate Employers team has worked alongside Celebration Day to help create new resources called “Finding the words”. These resources have been created to support schools and families to feel confident having gentle, age appropriate conversations about love, loss, remembrance and grief. 

If this feels relevant to your work, we encourage you to explore and use these resources, and to share them with any families or education networks you support locally. 

You can find out more about the partnership and download the resources on our website. If you’d like to learn more, please feel free to get in touch with the Compassionate Employers team.

Our next Evidence into Practice community of practice session focused on social care will be on Wednesday 20 May, from 15:30 to 17:00. 

Dr Diana Teggi from the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath will speak about her work on palliative and end of life care delivered in care homes. Dr Paul Taylor from St Luke's Hospice Sheffield and the University of Sheffield and Professor Liz Walker from the University of Hull will speak about their work developing co-produced training resources for homecare workers caring for people at the end of life.

We will also be providing a snapshot of some of the themes that came through at this year's European Society of Palliative Care Congress in Prague. 

To take part, please sign up to join the Evidence into Practice community of practice. You will then be sent a meeting invitation.

Our Big Conversation webinar in June is on outcome measures and making it work in clinical practice settings. The session will take place on Wednesday 10 June, 11:30 to 13:00.

We will be joined by Prof Fliss Murtagh, Professor of Palliative Care, and Director of the Wolfson Palliative Care Research Centre, and Dr Alison Landon, Palliative Care Physician at St Christopher’s Hospice, for a workshop giving an overview of patient-centred outcome measures (PCOMs), including the Integrated Palliative Outcome Scale (IPOS) and Australia-modified Karnofsky Performance Scale (AKPS). We will explore what they are, why they are important, how to ask and record the data, and the clinical reality of how they are used in practice. 

This workshop is aimed at frontline palliative care clinicians who would like to learn more about, or refresh their thinking on, how to collect and use this data. We are particularly keen to engage newer colleagues in this conversational workshop.

Our next Financial Benchmarking network meeting is on Wednesday 10 June, from 14:00 to 15:00 and will cover the results of the Q4 report.
 
This session is likely to be of most interest to hospice finance directors/heads of finance, but any hospice staff/trustees are welcome to attend.
 
To attend the session, please become a member of the Financial Benchmarking network.

We have a Big Conversation webinar taking place Thursday 11 June, 11:00 to 12:00.

We will be joined by Dr Natasha Wilcock, palliative care Doctor at Royal Trinity Hospice to discuss the Accessible Information Standard and Reasonable Adjustments Digital Flag and how hospices can meet their requirements to ensure information is provided in accessible formats to anyone with a disability, impairment or sensory loss. 

To take part in this session, please sign up to join via our website.

The third annual Sawubona virtual conference will be taking place on 2 June 2026, from 9:30 to 17:00.

Sawubona is a national research forum focused on Equity in Palliative Care for All. In this one-day virtual conference, they will showcase and critically engage with emerging evidence, current practices, and the impact of recent research in shaping future directions in addressing inequities in palliative care.

Book your place.

We are again aware of Corin Dalby's upcoming campaign plans in England, and understand he has again been contacting a number of CEOs around the sector asking for support. It is welcome that Corin appears to have adapted his messaging somewhat, moving away from articulating proposed funding policy solutions linked to Financial Conduct Authority fines, to a broader message around fair funding. As ever we welcome publicity generated around hospice funding.

We do however remained concerned that Corin is attempting to present himself to government and Parliament as a representative of the sector without sufficient knowledge of the nuanced and complex position we are collectively in, or of the policy solutions required. These concerns have been explained to him. We therefore continue to caution members against actively supporting his campaign work.

For further information or advice, please email our policy team.

On Thursday 7 May, the Department of Health gave evidence to the Health Committee in response to the recommendations from the committee’s inquiry into palliative care. You can also watch the committee session in full online, starting 1 hour and 46 minutes in.

While most recommendations have been accepted or partially accepted, there is still no clear timeline or funding to deliver them. We share the Committee’s disappointment at the lack of meaningful progress on hospice funding in Northern Ireland. Hospices urgently need sustainable investment to meet rising demand and continue providing vital palliative and end of life care.

Ahead of the session on the palliative care inquiry, the Department also gave evidence on the Neighbourhood Model approach in Northern Ireland. The model currently focuses on care of older people in 2026/27, and the Committee pushed on the role of hospices within this. The Permanent Secretary apologised that hospices had not been included in the initial development and confirmed they will be fully involved going forward.

You can see more on ITV News, including an interview with Northern Ireland Hospice CEO Trevor McCartney.

If you have any questions or would like more information, please email our policy team.

Following the Scottish Parliament election on Thursday 7 May, results have now been confirmed across all constituencies and regions.

Out of 129 seats in Scottish Parliament:

• SNP won 58 seats
• Scottish Labour and Reform UK both won 17 seats
• Scottish Greens won 15 seats
• Scottish Conservatives won 12 seats
• Scottish Lib Dems won 10 seats

This is the fifth successive Holyrood election that the SNP has won. The SNP are clear they intend to form the next Scottish Government – and John Swinney has said that “the public expectation” is for him to continue as First Minister.

However, the SNP are short of the 65 seats needed to form a majority government. John Swinney has said he will invite each party leader – with the exception of Reform - to engage in talks this week on how to work cross-party going forward, since he will be leading a minority government.

Hospice UK will work with Scottish hospices to build relationships with newly elected MSPs and the new Scottish Government.

Following the Senedd election on Thursday 7 May, results show a significant shift in Welsh politics.

Out of 96 seats in the Senedd:

• Plaid Cymru won 43 seats
• Reform UK won 34 seats
• Welsh Labour won 9 seats
• Welsh Conservatives won 7 seats
• Wales Green Party won 2 seats
• Welsh Liberal Democrats won 1 seat

Plaid Cymru are now on course to form the next Welsh Government with Leader Rhun ap Iorwerth MS saying he intends to form a minority government and is expected to become First Minister in the coming days. Reform UK were the other major winners with 34 seats and will now become the official opposition. 

In anticipation of the election, we have spent the last 18 months highlighting the critical role of hospice and palliative care and are confident it will remain a priority over the course of this new Senedd.

Hospice UK will continue working with partners in Wales to build relationships with newly elected MSs and the next Welsh Government.