Hospices have received only a small fraction of £50m promised by the Government, according to the Liberal Democrats.

The party publicised details of a survey by the National Council for Hospice and Palliative Care Services, which suggested that hardly any of the money included in the NHS Cancer Plan has been delivered to hospices.

The party's health spokesman Dr Evan Harris said: ''Our charities have created a world-leading service for dying patients. ''But hospices are in financial crisis, because the Government won't face up to its responsibility to provide care for the dying.

''Charities already provide over half the funding for hospices. The extra £50m from the NHS Cancer Plan would have at least struck a balance between the state and the voluntary sector. But that money was spent on other priorities.''

The survey could trace only £4m of the pledged £50m, with little more spending on hospices apparently planned in 2002/3.

It concluded that much of the additional funding promised for cancer services, including palliative care, had been diverted by into other services.

The Liberal Democrats suggested that was because the Government had failed to provide central guidance to Primary Care Trusts, the local NHS bodies charged with providing care for terminally ill patients, on how much money should be spent on palliative care.

It called on the Department of Health to establish a process that would ensure that funding pledged to palliative care actually reaches hospices.

The Department of Health said that the Government's national cancer director, Professor Mike Richards, wrote to NHS managers last month to highlight concerns that some hospices did not appear to be benefiting fully from the extra £50m allocated.

Dr Richards reminded them that the Government's intention was that the extra investment should have been made by 2004, and that it expected to see year by year progress on that target.