Why Are Hospices Closing Beds?
The UK Funding Crisis Explained
Beds are closing.
Community nursing services are being cut.
Specialist staff are being made redundant.
And the hospices reaching out to charities like ours for emergency support are growing in number every month.
At Hospice Aid UK, we’ve always tried to focus on the positive – the hospices we’ve helped, the difference your donations make, the extraordinary care that happens every day in hospices across the country. And those things remain true.
But right now the hospice funding crisis in the UK has reached a point where we can’t stay quiet about it.
Find out what’s happening, why it’s happening, and what you can do to help.
How bad is the hospice funding crisis in the UK?
The picture is stark. The National Audit Office reported in October 2025 that nearly two thirds of independent adult hospices ended the 2023-24 financial year in deficit. That’s not a wobble. That’s a sector-wide crisis.
MPs from across the political spectrum have raised the alarm. In a House of Commons debate on hospice and palliative care in January 2025, members described hospices being forced to close inpatient beds and cut community services across the country. One MP reported that a single hospice in their constituency had been forced to strip £1 million from its budget, ending its hospice-at-home service – directly affecting 26 patients in a single month, many of whom spent their final days in hospital beds they didn’t want to be in.
In November 2025, the Health and Social Care Select Committee’s Independent Expert Panel published its evaluation of palliative care services in England, finding services under significant strain across all settings. When Health Minister, Stephen Kinnock, gave evidence to the Committee in January 2026, he acknowledged that the government does not collect data on hospice bed utilisation – meaning nobody in government can say with certainty how many hospice beds have been lost.
To put that in human terms: people who need specialist end-of-life care are struggling to access it. Families who relied on community hospice nurses visiting their homes are being told there aren’t enough staff to go round. Children’s hospices – places that support families facing the unimaginable – are forecasting deficits that threaten their very survival. According to Together for Short Lives, 91% of children’s hospices are forecasting a net deficit for 2025-26.
How are hospices funded in the UK – and why is it broken?
Most people are surprised to learn that hospices are charities. They’re not part of the NHS, even though they deliver care that the NHS would otherwise need to provide. On average, hospices receive only around a third of their funding from the government through local Integrated Care Boards. The rest – the majority of what it costs to run a hospice – comes from charitable donations, fundraising events, legacy gifts, and charity shops.
That model has always relied on the generosity of local communities. And for many years, it worked. But several things have happened at once.
Running costs have soared. Energy bills, which hit hospices particularly hard because they operate buildings 24 hours a day, saw extraordinary increases. Staff costs are the single biggest expense for any hospice – the House of Lords Library notes they account for around 71% of a typical hospice’s spending – and they continue to climb.
Then came the employer National Insurance increase in the October 2024 Budget, which raised contributions from 13.8% to 15%. Hospices were not exempted. For organisations that employ hundreds of nurses, care workers, therapists and support staff, this added a significant new cost with no additional funding to cover it.
At the same time, government funding through local Integrated Care Boards has failed to keep pace with inflation. Not a single area in England saw its hospice funding keep up with rising costs over the past two years. The gap between what hospices receive and what they actually need has widened to tens of millions of pounds nationally.
Meanwhile, the cost-of-living squeeze has meant that the communities who have always rallied around their local hospices are finding it harder to give. People are stretched. Charity shops are seeing fewer donations. Fundraising returns are declining. It’s a perfect storm.
What about the government’s £100 million for hospices?
You may have read about the government’s £100 million capital investment in hospices, announced in December 2024 and distributed during 2025. This was genuinely welcome and has made a real difference – helping hospices repair leaking roofs, replace heating systems, and upgrade equipment and facilities.
But here’s the crucial detail: that funding was capital investment. It can only be spent on buildings and equipment, not on the day-to-day costs of actually running a hospice – staff wages, medicines, heating, food, and the hundreds of other things that keep the doors open and the care flowing.
Capital funding is important. But it doesn’t pay a nurse’s salary. It doesn’t keep the lights on in a children’s hospice at three o’clock in the morning. It doesn’t fund the counsellor who sits with a family after they’ve lost someone they love.
For that, hospices rely on people like you.
What does the hospice crisis look like close up?
At Hospice Aid UK, we’re a small charity with a big promise: when a hospice comes to us with an urgent need, we help immediately.
That promise is becoming harder to keep.
The number of hospices reaching out to us for emergency support is growing.
Recently, we recently provided a grant to Isabel Hospice in eastern Hertfordshire. When we contacted them with the good news, their response stopped us in our tracks. They told us that due to the critical financial crisis facing hospices, they’ve had to make the difficult decision to close their solely charity-funded services – including their Children’s Bereavement Service – from April 2026.
A service that supports grieving children – children who have lost a parent, a sibling, someone they love – is closing. Not because the need has gone away, but because there simply isn’t enough money to keep it running. Isabel Hospice made this decision to safeguard their long-term survival and protect their core specialist palliative and end-of-life care. They shouldn’t have had to choose.
This is what the funding crisis looks like close up. It’s not just numbers on a spreadsheet. It’s a child who’s lost their mum and has one fewer place to turn for help making sense of it all.
And Isabel Hospice isn’t alone. Hospices across the UK are approaching us for help with everything from replacing essential medical equipment to keeping vital services running when their budgets simply don’t stretch far enough.
For almost 25 years, we’ve been able to say yes. Jo, our founder, set up Hospice Aid UK because she saw first-hand how important hospices are, and how much they rely on support from the wider community. That mission hasn’t changed. But the scale of need has.
We don’t want to be in a position where we have to say no to a hospice that’s asking for help. And with your support, we won’t have to.
How you can help hospices right now
We know that times are tough for everyone. We’d never ask anyone to give more than they can afford. But if you’re in a position to help, here are some ways your support can make a genuine difference:
Make a donation. Whether it’s £5 or £500, every pound we receive goes towards supporting hospices when they need it most. A one-off gift helps, and a regular monthly donation – however small – allows us to plan ahead and respond quickly when a hospice comes to us in crisis. You can donate through our website or by post.
Leave a legacy. A gift in your will to Hospice Aid UK is one of the most impactful things you can do. Legacy gifts have sustained our work for over two decades, and they ensure that future generations will have access to the compassionate end-of-life care that everyone deserves.
Fundraise for us. Whether it’s a coffee morning, a sponsored walk, a bake sale, or something entirely different – fundraising events bring communities together and raise vital funds. We’ll support you every step of the way. Get in touch and we’ll send you everything you need to get started.
Spread the word. Share this post. Talk to people about what’s happening. The hospice funding crisis doesn’t get the attention it deserves, and awareness is the first step towards change. If more people understood how hospices are funded – and how close many are to cutting the services that families depend on – we believe more people would want to help.
Consider a corporate partnership. If you’re a business looking for a meaningful charity partner, we’d love to hear from you. Corporate support can make an extraordinary difference, and we’ll work with you to create a partnership that benefits your team, your community, and the hospices that need it.
Why does the hospice funding crisis matter to every family?
Most of us don’t think about hospice care until we need it. And then it becomes the most important thing in the world.
One day, it might be your mum or dad. Your partner. Your best friend. Your child. And when that day comes, you’ll want to know that there’s a hospice nearby, with beds available, and nurses who have the time to provide the kind of care that makes an unbearable situation just a little more bearable.
If you’d like to understand more about the care hospices provide, our earlier post What Is Palliative Care? Understanding Hospice Care in the UK
That’s what’s at stake. Not statistics and funding models – but real people, in real communities, at the most vulnerable moments of their lives.
At Hospice Aid UK, we’ve spent nearly 25 years making sure hospices can be there when families need them. With your fabulous help, we can keep going.
If you’d like to know more about our work, explore our website or get in touch at info@hospiceaid.org.uk.
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