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A Lifeline Fund for Wales

Tŷ Hafan and North Wales based Tŷ Gobaith are working to establish a new Lifeline Fund to give us funding equality with the rest of the UK and ensure that all Welsh children with life-limiting conditions and their families can receive the support they desperately need.

The only two children’s hospices in Wales are working constructively with the Welsh Government, Members of the Senedd, and the End-of-Life Care Board to find a sustainable funding solution.

The proposal for a Lifeline Fund stemmed from the Family Voices report jointly published by the charities in 2020.

Read the 'Family Voices' report in English here and in Welsh here.

Between us, Tŷ Hafan and Tŷ Gobaith provide respite and palliative care for more than 450 families with terminally and seriously ill children and offer around 2,500 nights of respite care each year in Wales. 

Currently we receive less than 10% of our annual funding from the Welsh Government and statutory sources like local authorities and health boards. This is in stark contrast to England, where in 2020/21 children’s hospices saw an increase in state funding from 21% to 34% of charitable expenditure - a move in the right direction.

Elsewhere, in Northern Ireland funding sits as 25% and Scotland 50% - while the Republic of Ireland recently announced it would fund 30% of running costs for their children’s hospices.

What would a Lifeline Fund achieve?

• Secure additional crucial nights of respite care for children with a life-limiting condition and their families at children’s hospices.
• Enable hospices to employ more staff who can develop positive relationships with families throughout a child’s life, establishing trusted partnership working, and a deeper understanding of the child and families’ needs.
• Reduce the burden on, and financial costs to, the NHS by reducing unplanned and crisis hospital admissions for children with life-limiting conditions.
• Ensure our hospices can sustain and expand our care in other areas such as: physiotherapy and other therapeutic support, clinical support and advice.
• Give the hospices the financial confidence to plan to expand sustainable services to reach more children and families.
• Support local government to meet its statutory requirements in relation to respite care, which cannot be met without a sustainable children’s hospice sector.
• Ultimately, to ensure Wales makes a vital step in our national mission to become a compassionate country.

How can you support us?

You can help us ensure that our call for a Lifeline Fund remains on the political agenda in Wales by writing to your constituency and regional Members of the Senedd.

This will help ensure that elected representatives remain focused on the need to offer a sustainable funding solution for those children with unfairly short lives and that they receive the best possible care, at home, at the hospices and in the community.

Download draft letter/email in English and in Welsh

Further information can be found in our briefing document, available online here in English and Welsh. 

Thank you for your support.