More than seven hundred children are admitted to the nine-bed unit each year, many of them directly from the hospital’s Emergency Department or from other hospitals with complex serious illnesses, also following Major Surgery Children from newborn to 17 years are cared for on this specialist unit. This may be due to massive trauma following a road traffic accident or other serious illnesses or serious heart disease in tiny babies. We recently obtained a second ambulance to add to the unit enabling us to have one for retrievals and one for transfers.

• The unit encourages family centred care by incorporating the family in the care of their child, and providing family accommodation to help the families with the trauma of their child being admitted to the unit.

• The family accommodation has 6 bedrooms 2 double and 4 single. It also has a kitchen and 2 sitting rooms, one which has a playroom attached. The playroom is available for all children who visit the unit providing they are accompanied by an adult. We are currently trying to raise funds to refurbish our family rooms.

To run such a service and maintain high standards of care, which is paramount in the care of seriously ill Children, requires frequent up dating.

Therefore we are looking for help to maintain and purchase new life saving equipment .