The Sick Children's Trust

The Sick Children's Trust believes keeping families together significantly improves the recovery of seriously ill children. We provide high quality ‘Home from Home’ accommodation, as well as emotional and practical support, to families of sick children in hospital in the UK. The Sick Children’s Trust was founded in 1982 by two paediatric specialists Dr Jon Pritchard and Professor James Malpas. They believed that having parents on hand during hospital treatment benefited a child's recovery. Today we have 10 ‘Homes from Home’ at major hospitals around the country where families can stay free of charge, for as long as they need whilst their child is undergoing treatment. There is a growing demand for our services as hospital care becomes more specialised and children must increasingly travel long distances to get the expert treatment they need. To date we have helped more than 45,000 families. We rely entirely on voluntary donations and every year we must raise £1.6m to cover our running costs. We're proud to offer our services free of charge to the families who need them, but it costs us around £28 to provide a room for one family for one night.