THE Prime Minister has pledged to meet with the chairman of Naomi House following a question in parliament over the disparity between funding in adult and children’s hospices.

MP John Glen, who highlighted the issue during Prime Minister’s Questions, also raised concerns regarding the way in which the Hampshire-based charity was considered a private clinic when paying for essential medicines needed by the children in their care.

David Cameron agreed that more needed to be done to ensure funding for children’s hospices was fair and equitable, and offered to meet with John Glen MP and Naomi House chairman Khalid Aziz to discuss the matter further.

Prof Aziz said: “We have been trying for several years to secure substantial and sustainable funding for our operations. “The hospice relies on the generosity of the public to provide its service free of charge to families and like many children’s hospices, Naomi House receives substantially less funding than counterparts in the adult hospice network.

“The hospice is currently forced to pay a full commercial rate for prescription medicines needed to treat children in its care.”

Naomi House provides respite, emergency and end of life care to life-limited and life-threatened children and young people from seven counties in central southern England. Mr Glen said: "I think there was an understanding of the problem, and the Prime Minister's had deep personal experience of this with his eldest son who sadly died.

“What Mr Cameron said was that he hoped there will be per patient funding available, which would allow for more reliability in planning for hospices.

“I certainly hope that we can bring, as he said 'greater logic and consistency' to how we support this absolutely essential part of our service."