The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said it was urgent the Government addresses the withdrawal of services and cuts which are being made now ahead of April.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: ‘We acknowledge the Government's insistence that it lacks complacency, but the autumn timelines of the arrival of its current reforms risk ignoring the reality. A funding cliff-edge is approaching in only a month. Details of what these reforms might look like are thin on the ground, but regardless, by the time any help arrives, invaluable services may already have been cut.'

The report warns the financial situation for hospices risks depriving the NHS of the huge value they provide beyond statutory palliative and end-of-life care, including expert advice and training, innovation in care, leadership in the move to provide more care in the community, and support for care homes and GPs.

Around a quarter of adults spend their last days in hospital, where many would prefer not to be. A third of people receiving acute care in hospital are in the last year of life, accounting for about 10m bed days each year.

The PAC's report seeks a detailed explanation from NHS England on how it will move more palliative and end-of-life care into the community.

The report warns the forthcoming Government's new framework for hospices to improve how boards pay for services from hospices was ‘unclear'.

It acknowledged the Government provided £125m in funding to hospices recently, but added it will not address the shortfalls in funding for service delivery.

The report added neither Government nor NHSE had effective oversight over what care public funding was paying for.

Hospices save the NHS more than £800m each year by supporting around 20,000 people to die outside hospitals. However, ICBs provide only around £420m to hospices, which spend around £1.2bn a year on care, meaning charitable income funds much of the demand for care. Despite this, the report says ICBs continue to fund hospices largely through grants and block contracts and have made slow progress towards transitioning to strategic commissioning.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘Hospices do incredible work to support people and families when they need it most and are facing incredibly tough pressures.

‘This Government has made the biggest investment in hospices in a generation - £125m – to improve hospice facilities, freeing other funding for patient care, and has also committed £80m for children's and young people's hospices over three years.

‘We will soon set out our plans to modernise and improve the palliative and end of life care sector, as we shift more healthcare out of hospitals and into the community with hospices playing a central role in delivering care closer to home.'