East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH) cares for children and young people with life-threatening conditions across Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk and supports their families. Our family-centred approach includes specialist nursing care, symptom management nursing, short breaks, wellbeing activities, therapies, counselling and volunteer services in the family home; all meeting the individual needs of the child, young person and whole family.

We offer families flexibility and control over where they receive their care and support, including where their child dies; at home, in hospital or at one of three hospices at Milton (Cambridge), The Nook (Norfolk) and The Treehouse (Ipswich).  More than half of our care and support is delivered in the family home and community, in surroundings familiar and comfortable for the family.

 Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic children are still dying from life-threatening conditions and their families need our support.  The extending pressure means our care is more important than ever. Our hospices remain open and continue to provide care and support, as families who have been shielding and self-isolating become exhausted.

Our voluntary income has taken a significant hit throughout, as fundraising activities and events continue to be restricted, postponed or cancelled. Every lockdown also brings the closure of our 43 shops and the loss of around £100,000 in income every week. When our shops can re-open, managing activity back to sustainable levels of income in between has brought some success, but we are still not trading to the levels we need and have budgeted to.

Our latest forecasting shows an operational deficit of £2 million over the next 12 months. This illustrates why we need our service delivery underpinned by proper statutory funding.

We continue to work hard to replace the high levels of income lost and to drive down costs where we can, to ensure delivery of frontline service during a time when retail income and fundraising remain significantly affected. Our programme of cost-saving has included the closure of our Head Office building at Milton and our office in Ipswich, as staff have proved they can work remotely, blending home working with using office space in hospice buildings.

All lost income has a direct impact on the volume of care we can provide. We urgently need your help to ensure we survive the financial impact and are there for families for the times they need us.

Please help us by clicking on the DONATE button.  Thank you