MP Bob Seely has praised the remarkable work of the Island’s Mountbatten Hospice in Parliament.
Speaking in a debate on hospices this week, Mr Seely praised the staff and volunteers at the Mountbatten hospice in Halberry Lane, Newport, and especially its leader, Nigel Hartley.
“The Mountbatten hospice in Newport is one of our most cherished institutions on the Island. I thank all the people who work there and support it for the fantastic work that they do caring for people on the Isle of Wight. I pay special tribute to the head of our hospice, Nigel Hartley, one of the most impressive people we have on the Island.”
Mr Seely said that hospices: “provide succour, professional support and, probably above all, love and comfort.”
However, he raised concerns about a shortfall in NHS funding for Mountbatten hospice in Parliament.
Earlier this year, Mr Seely said he was concerned that a full funding allocation was not being passed onto Mountbatten IW from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board (ICB). In February, he wrote a joint letter with Eastleigh MP Paul Holmes, to request a funding uplift from the ICB in line with inflation for both of Mountbatten’s hospices – Mountbatten IW and Mountbatten Hampshire.
Speaking during a debate on Monday (22 April) he said: “We are not asking for the NHS to step in, but we are asking for the NHS to pay its way and, if it is using hospices, to give them sufficient funding. Otherwise, the burden of looking after the NHS’s responsibilities, for want of a better term, is falling heavily on folks in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh and on the Island.
“We have our major fundraiser for the Isle of Wight Mountbatten hospice on 12 May. Walk the Wight is a fantastic event. Last year it raised £460,000, but running a hospice is expensive and when it is dealing with below-inflation increases from our ICB, that is problematic.”
Mr Seely asked Health Minister, Helen Whately, to ensure that the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board was doing its job effectively and properly.
He said: “Some of us have concerns about some of the decisions being made. Can we ensure that the ICB is managing its affairs well and that, in so doing, it is giving support to hospices both in Eastleigh and in Newport and the Isle of Wight? Our hospice, the Mountbatten hospice, so badly needs it.”
Paul Holmes MP said he was concerned that £1.5 billion awarded by the government to ICBs for hospice services was not being passed on.
He said: “My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) and I had a meeting last week with representatives from our ICB. I asked how much of that £1.5 billion had been awarded to the Hampshire ICB. They could not give an answer. I asked how much of that was allocated to hospices in the region. They could not give an answer.
“I say what I said last June to the Minister, who is doing an excellent job: that money was very welcome but I hope we can look at a better way of holding ICBs to account, to ensure that when the Government put hard-pressed money into our health system, ICBs deliver it to the frontline services for which it was intended.”
Mr Seely and Mr Holmes are both members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hospice and End of Life Care which released a report earlier this year that highlighted the real terms cuts in the funding hospices receive from ICBs which have not kept pace with inflation.
