Registered Charity No
SC023199
We give parent's and carers a place to stay while their seriously ill child is in hospital. Children come from all over Scotland and further afield to receive treatment at the Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow and other West of Scotland hospitals. Many need emergency treatment and can end up very far from home for weeks or months at a time. We help keep families together by providing free, high quality accommodation, only a few minutes walk from the hospital.
The Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow is Scotland's largest children's hospital and a centre of excellence for oncology, cardiology, cardiac surgery, renal medicine and bone marrow transplantation. Therefore, children with extremely complex and critical conditions from far and wide are treated there.
Based on the hospital campus, we provide cost free 'home away from home' accommodation for c.500 families each year while their child is in hospital. We are open and staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The House has 31 bedrooms which equates to over 11,000 nights gifted to families each year. We have been providing this support to families for over twenty years, after opening our doors at Yorkhill in 1996. Since then, we have welcomed over 12,000 families. Running at 95% - 100% capacity every day, the current average length of stay is 21 days, our longest stay family was nearly 4 years.
Our facilities include private en-suite bedrooms, shared laundry facilities, a library, quiet lounges, spacious garden and private parking. The large shared kitchen and dining area has an interactive soft play for small children - allowing parents to cook family meals while siblings play. Crucially, every bedroom has a phone that is linked directly to their child's Ward, so parents can call or be called to the hospital at a moments notice, no matter what time of day or night.
We are proud to provide a homely environment and a safe haven for families to rest in, away from the stresses of the hospital.
'Having our own room and knowing we could do everyday things like cook and eat dinner as a family, just being able to come and go as we needed made our unbearable time at hospital that little bit easier.' The Ross Family