(2) when she anticipates funding for children's hospices to start; how much of the funding announced will be distributed in (a) 2006-07, (b) 2007-08 and (c) 2008-09; whether this funding will be sourced from the Department of Health's central budget; which hospices will receive funding; and what the mechanism will be through which the funding will be allocated.
Children's hospices play a valuable role in the provision of palliative care for disabled children and young people or those with complex health needs and their families and I am pleased that we have been able to provide additional funding to them. But they are only one aspect of children's palliative care. We want to see children and their families have a real choice as to where they receive their care so that they can live as normal a life as possible for as long as possible. Our White Paper, “Our health, Our care, Our say”, expects primary care trusts to ensure that the right model of service is developed by undertaking a review to audit capacity and delivery of integrated pathways against national service framework standards and then to agree service models, funding and commissioning arrangements with their strategic health authorities. The White Paper also restates the Government manifesto commitment to increase funding for end of life care which includes palliative care for children and young people. We will make an announcement about funding this manifesto commitment as soon as we can.
We announced that £9 million per year would be available to voluntary children's hospices for the next three years starting from this financial year and it will be centrally funded. This will enable services funded by the Big Lottery Fund to continue, pending the outcome of a review of children's hospice services and their funding arrangements. We will publish funding criteria and arrangements for allocation as soon as possible.