FOI 2025/1199

Original Questions:

The questions below which I would like you to answer are designed to help me understand:

• how much money NHS Greater Manchester ICB spent on hospice services for children and young people with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions in 2024/25
• how many children and young people with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions in your ICB footprint accessed hospice care during 2024/25
• how much money your integrated care board (ICB) plans to spend on hospice services for children and young people with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions during 2025/26, excluding the £26 million of funding that NHS England has asked every ICB to distribute.

In order to help you meet my request, I provide definitions to the terms I use in my questions below:

Life-limiting and life-threatening conditions

“Life-limiting conditions are those for which there is no reasonable hope of cure and from which children will die. Some of these conditions cause slow deterioration over time rendering the child increasingly dependent on parents and carers.

Life-threatening conditions are those for which curative treatment may be feasible but can fail, such as cancer.”

Children and young people

Babies, children and young people aged 0-25.

Questions

1. Please set out how much money your integrated care board spent on hospice care for children and young people with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions between 6 April 2024 and 5 April 2025. Please provide a total, in addition to a breakdown of funding per children’s hospice organisation.
2. Please set out the arrangement through which this money was paid in 2024/25 – was this by standard contract, service level agreement, grant arrangement, spot purchases or other by means.
3. Please set out how many children and young people with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions who live in your integrated care board footprint accessed hospice care between 6 April 2024 and 5 April 2025. Please provide a total, in addition to a breakdown of funding per hospice organisation.
4. Please set out how many children and young people with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions who live in your integrated care board footprint could benefit from children’s hospice care.
5. Please set out how much money your integrated care board plans to spend on hospice care for children and young people with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions between 6 April 2025 and 5 April 2026, excluding any money that is set to be paid as part of the £26 million of NHS England funding. Please provide a total, in addition to a breakdown of funding per hospice organisation.
6. Please set out the arrangement through which this money will be paid in 2025/26 – by standard contract, service level agreement, grant arrangement, spot purchases or other by means.

Clarification Request:

For question 1, while I can see you have noticed that funding for Derian House is from NHS England, can you please confirm that the other figures provided do not include any money that was disseminated as part of the £25 million of NHS England funding for children’s hospices?

If the figures provided are inclusive of this particular funding, can you please provide figures excluding any money disseminated as part of the £25 million?

Original Response:

1. NHS Greater Manchester’s Financial year runs for the period 1^st April to 31^st March, rather than the tax year commencing 6^th April. Therefore, throughout this response, information is provided in respect of the financial year, 1^st April 2024 to 31^st March 2025.

The following funding was provided in 2024/25 specifically to the below CYP Hospices:

• Derian House (directly funded) – £0.112m
• Derian House (NHS England funded) – £0.721m
• Forget Me Not Childrens Hospice – £0.030m
• Francis House – £0.883m
• Total – £1.746m

2. The Derian House Greater Manchester Children and Young People (CYP) Hospice grant payment was incorporated into an NHS Standard Contract with Derian House (as funded by NHSE) led by NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB.

The elements of the contract with Derian House funded from NHS GM resources was paid via grant arrangement.

For 24/25, the Francis House CYP Hospice grant payment was paid by direct invoice.

The expenditure with Forget Me Not Childrens Hospice was a grant payment paid by direct invoice.

3. NHS GM does not hold this information.
4. NHS GM is unable to answer this question as it is considered subjective, and the number of children and young people who may benefit would require examination of individual patient records to consider specific conditions, which the ICB does not have access to.
5. At the time of receiving your Freedom of Information request, NHS Greater Manchester’s budget for the year 2025/26 has not been set and agreed with NHS England. Therefore, this information is not currently available.
6. Based on a recent Greater Manchester review of specialist palliative care commissioning, it is likely that all these agreements (with the exception of payment to Forget me Not) will be placed on NHS Standard Contracts. The Derian House contract will remain held by NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB.

Clarification Response:

NHS Greater Manchester (NHS GM) can confirm that none of the other elements listed (excluding the £0.721m highlighted in respect to Q1) which were spent in 2024/25 were funded by NHS England as part of the £25m specific funding for Childrens Hospices.