Care homes, GPs and frontline charities are up in arms about the NICs rise announced by the chancellor last month which they say will force many to close.

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said: ‘Rather than hammering health and care services with a tax hike, hospices, care providers, GPs, pharmacists, dentists and front-line medical charities must be exempt.'

Toby Porter, chief executive of Hospice UK, which represents the UK's 200 hospices, said: ‘Far too many hospices are already cutting services, due to several years of NHS funding failing to keep up with rapidly rising costs of delivering care. The increases in employer national insurance from April will cost the average hospice several hundred thousands of pounds, and has made the situation much more serious and much more urgent. Hospice charities will be setting their budgets for the next financial year in the next month or two.

‘We have been encouraged by public statements made by ministers in recent days and weeks on the need to reform how palliative and end of life care is funded. We are awaiting further discussion and clarity and stand ready to support the Government's mission to move more care from hospitals to communities, by expanding not cutting essential hospice services.'

A government spokesperson said: ‘We want everyone to have access to high-quality end of life care and are aware of the financial pressures facing the hospice sector, and of the huge generosity of the British public, whose donations provide a significant proportion of hospice funding.

‘We are determined to shift more healthcare into the community and ensure patients and their families receive high-quality, personalised care in the most appropriate setting, and hospices will have a big role to play in that shift.'