A Policy Position from the BC Hospice Palliative Care Association
Ahead of Budget 2026
As British Columbia prepares for Budget 2026, there is an important conversation underway about health system sustainability, mental health, aging, and community care.
Hospice societies sit at the intersection of all of these.
Across British Columbia, hospice societies deliver community-based hospice palliative care that includes grief and bereavement support, caregiver stabilization, volunteer-led psychosocial care, advance care planning education, and continuity of support before, during, and after end of life.
This is not charity at the margins of the health system.
It is essential community infrastructure.
BC’s own End-of-Life Care Action Plan recognizes that high quality end-of-life care must increasingly support people to remain at home and in community, reducing avoidable hospital and emergency department use while improving coordination across settings.
International evidence reinforces this direction. Community-based palliative care models are associated with increased likelihood of dying at home, reduced symptom burden, and better coordination of care. Economic analyses in Canada show that palliative approaches reduce costly acute utilization and transitions to higher cost settings.
Hospice societies provide a distinct and critical layer of that community capacity.
They do not replace clinical teams.
They complement them.
They address needs that clinical systems alone cannot meet:
- community palliative care
- grief and bereavement across the lifespan
- caregiver burnout prevention
- psychosocial stabilization
- culturally responsive, low-barrier support
- volunteer mobilization that extends system reach
The structural challenge facing hospice societies is not evidence.
It is integration.
Too often, hospice societies are referenced but not formally embedded in policy architecture. Consulted but not consistently resourced. Valued but not structurally positioned within funding pathways and cross ministry mandates.
Yet during the 2026 Select Standing Committee on Finance consultations, hospice societies, grief and bereavement services, and caregiver supports were explicitly named within the Committee’s recommendations. This signals growing recognition that community-based hospice palliative care is foundational to system sustainability.
Recognition, however, must translate into structural alignment.
Hospice societies not only support those during end of life, but across all lifespan, including upstream grief and caregiver stabilization, which reduces downstream mental health crises, workplace disruption, and health system demand.
Hospice societies already provide this prevention layer.
They mobilize thousands of trained speciality trained volunteers, deliver low-barrier psychosocial support in rural and urban communities, and reach more than 120,000 people annually across British Columbia.
At a time of fiscal constraint, community-based delivery is not a luxury.
It is a cost effective strategy.
The path forward does not require new bureaucracy.
It requires structural recognition.
Integration without institutionalization means:
- explicitly naming hospice societies as essential community health and mental health partners
- aligning funding mechanisms with non-clinical palliative functions such as grief and caregiver support
- embedding palliative approaches and hospice delivery models across health, mental health, seniors, and family policy frameworks
- leveraging provincial coordination to reduce duplication while preserving community governance
British Columbia already has trusted hospice infrastructure.
What is missing is consistent structural alignment.
Hospice societies are system stabilizers.
They are mental health partners.
They are cost containment allies.
As Budget 2026 is released, BCHPCA looks forward to working with government to ensure that hospice palliative care and grief and bereavement services are structurally recognized as essential components of British Columbia’s care system.
Budget 2026, is to be released on Tuesday February 17th. Stay tuned!
BCHPCA Team and Members
