Isle of Wight 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. Commenting on the place that Mountbatten Hospice has on the Island, Seely said:
“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.” “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 (22nd 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.”
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. It was earlier this week that posters questioning where Mountbatten funds raised during Walk the Wight get sent, appeared on gate posts and fences across the Island.
And yet he knows it’s standard practice for the Treasury to commit to funding early on in political tenure but hang on to the money ‘just in case’ until the very last year so they can trumpet loudly in an election year thinking no-one will notice.
Very disingenuous, Seely.
The ICB like the rest of the NHS has no money, the ICB have laid off staff left, right and centre. They will only pay for the minimum contractual requirement.
So if “half a sausage Bob”, wants more money from the government for his profile raising pet project, then he should have stood up and done something about it 14 years ago.
To be fair to Seely, he’s only been an MP since 2017. Still plenty of time (7 years) to do something, however.
Fxxx me! Slow down Bob. You’re popping up up all over the place at the moment. What’s going on? Oh yeah! Election looming.
I really think pop up Bob has a semi blank template put in front of him every day which has an empty space “Insert today’s concern here” which Bob (or his handler) fills in with a crayon.
Then they get out the pop-up Bob picture and stick it on a background of suitable scenery.
The hardest decisions they have to make is…
‘The picture with a tie on?, the sleeves rolled up one? Ooh, what about the sitting in a desk one? Yes. And lets add a mug of tea! ”
Pathetic, charmless and irrelevant man.
ah,.. pop-up-bob strikes again…
why ( as the GE aproaches) is the underfunding of the hospice suddenly a thing he cares about, when he hasn’t up up until now…
it’s not as if under-funding is a new thing,.. so it can onyl be because there’s an election coming up & he’s desperate to save his seat…
He should be concerned ALL THE TIME about the funding for the Hospice not just now to promote himself as the Island MP.
What a hypocrite.
Your not pulling the wool over the Echo community BOB pop up, we all see what your doing.
Numpty in the house, seldom seen seely is now pop up bob, what a chump. It has taken his almost 5 years to attempt to do anything. Bye Bob.
He’s going to do himself an injury jumping between all those bandwagons.
Is there anyone else there seats look empty
there rarely is when he’s speaking,…. (did you see his ferries ‘debate’… just him & 2 others)
perhaps they see him coming & leave….
It’s often like that when everyone else knows it’s just a ‘look, here’s the Hansard evidence, I’ve said it’ in the Commons. No-one turns up as it’s not necessary. It’s a sop for the electorate only. Otherwise it would be a Wednesday Question aimed at the PM.
On the ball again Pop Up Bob and more strongly worded letters flying around .. thanks for nothing … where have you been ? What have you done ..? Answer on a postage stamp please
Regardless of whether you have any time for this MP, the principal of funding for hospices in UK is a national embarassemnt in much the same way as ther RNLI completely relies on donations, both these organisations and I am sure there are many others should be fully funded
Yes,
but there are a lot of people who are deceived into rather seeing everything go to sh1t, than pay a few extra pence in tax to have everything well funded.
The whole Tory Ethos is to cut taxes, so everyone thinks they’ll be better off,..
& then make everyone pay even more (e.g. the cost + [tory benefactor’s] profits) for the services that should be govmnt funded..
works well for them, as the rich people end up getting those profits and can afford to pay for the services,..
while most end up having to give up a lot to be able to afford the essentials.
increase tax to adequately fund NHS & other ‘public’ services & most people will end up paying less overall…
(but they’ll never tell you that)
In a nutshell.
Not sure about this ,regarding the RNLI. But I think it should be funded by ferry container companies,boat yacht owners through a water tax like road tax
Bob. Bob. He’s our man. If he can’t save us, no one can…..apparently.
Why is it that the government pay out billions every week to snort/piss/smack heads, but begrudge funding to the NHS and hospices?
You’d be better off asking why the NHS budget goes mainly into the hands of private investment funds, leaving drugs and alcohol services to go whistle, THEN wonder why we have to fund unemployment for addicts.
Because it’s the right thing to do. It’s cheaper to feed them than fight them.
Hopefully pop up Bob will end up more like Humpty Dumpty and have a great fall.