Marie Curie responds to the Queen's Speech 2021

In response to the Queen's Speech 2021, focusing on delays to welfare reform for dying people and the future of health and social care, Head of Policy and Public Affairs for Marie Curie in England, Ruth Driscoll, said:

"Campaigners, dying people and their families will be greatly disappointed that the UK Government has, again, failed to bring forward proposals to improve fast-track access to benefits for terminally ill people. It is nearly two years since the Department for Work & Pensions announced it would review how dying people are treated by the benefits system; in that time, more than 6,000 people are estimated to have died waiting for a decision on their claim.

"The 'six-month rule,' which forces dying people to prove they have less than six months to live to get fast-track access to benefits, has been labelled 'cruel' by a parliamentary report and Ministers have already accepted that change is needed. Dying people across the country will be asking, if the UK Government has completed its review, then why the further delay? Terminally ill people deserve answers and a clear timetable for reform – and we will continue to campaign on their behalf.

"Marie Curie does welcomes the inclusion of a Health & Care Bill in the Queen's Speech. Delivering integrated health and social care services across England is an essential first step to ensuring everybody receives the care, support and dignity they deserve at the end of their lives. Learning the lessons from Covid-19 - improving smooth discharge from hospital, bringing services together and removing barriers to collaboration - will be vital if our health and care system is to be put on a sustainable footing for the next decades.

"The UK's ageing population means that, by 2040, many thousands more people will be dying every year - more people than died in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. It is critical that end of life care is put at the heart of new integrated care systems, with more support for community services to enable people to die where they choose, and a more resilient funding model for palliative and end of life care.

"This year, three quarters of bereaved carers said their loved one didn't get all the care and support they needed and nearly two thirds said their loved one's pain wasn't fully managed when they died at home. Urgent action is needed to ensure this doesn't become an all-too-common experience for the many more people who will die at home in the future.

"Simply reforming the NHS will not be sufficient, however. A solution to the chronic under-funding of social care is long overdue, and healthcare can no longer be seen in isolation - with more people dying at home than ever before in 2020, a trend that is likely to continue, fixing the UK's broken social care system is vital if people at the end of their lives are to have a good death now and in future. The longer the Government puts off the reform of social care, the more challenging those reforms will eventually be."