Over 110,000 Britons Unable to Receive Palliative Care Due to Funding Issues

About 118,000 UK citizens are reportedly unable to receive end-of-life care because the hospices face lack of funds.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — About 118,000 UK citizens are unable to receive end-of-life care because the country's hospices face lack of funds, local media reported Wednesday.

The United Kingdom has about 200 hospices and their funding via the country's National Health Service (NHS) has been significantly cut in 2016, as some two-thirds of them had funding cut or frozen, the Sky News broadcaster reported citing the information of the Hospice UK charity.

The news outlet added that larger funds allocated to the hospices would allow them to increase the number of treated people, easing pressure on the NHS hospitals, as about 250,000 people die in such hospitals annually, despite these institutions sometimes have no proper conditions to provide people with palliative care.

NHS England is an executive non-departmental public body of the UK Department of Health that works on setting priorities and direction of the NHS and aims to improve health and care in the United Kingdom. UK politicians and activists have been repeatedly stressed the need to increase the system's funding in order to enhance its capabilities.