Christopher’s Children’s Hospice

Suzanne and I made a welcome return to Christopher’s Children’s Hospice in Guildford where CEO Paul Farthing met us and gave us a tour and an update on their activities. Suzanne used to volunteer many years ago when it was still known as CHASE and concentrated on providing end of life care for those under the age of 18 and respite care to give their loved ones some support. After merging with Shooting Star in 2013, which has a hospice in Hampton, they rebranded as Shooting Star Children’s Hospices in 2019.

Paul told us that sadly 50% of those children under the age of 18 who pass away do so in the first 28 days of their life and eanother 25% within a year. Also, increasingly, due to the increased outreach work they provide, more parents chose to let their children live out their final hours at home rather than come to a hospice, so that the support model has changed significantly in recent years. By increasing the size of their out reach staff and bereavement support teams, Shooting Star now assists the families of 80% of young children that sadly pass away across Surrey, North-West London and South-West London each year; and they now also support those families that have suffered a sudden bereavement such as through a road traffic accident as well as those whose child was born with a life-limiting condition. Last year they supported 657 children with life-limiting conditions, provided nearly 1,500 care nights and 448 bereaved families accessed their specialist bereavement care