Being a child in hospital is hard. 

We want to change this. 

Your donation to the Childrens Appeal will help children in East Surrey Hospital to have the best possible experience. 

More children from across Surrey and Sussex are now cared for at East Surrey Hospital than at any time since the hospital was built. The team of specialist childrens nurses, doctors, and play specialists care for children from newborn babies, to toddlers, older children, and teenagers. We want to provide the very best for children, whether they are here for an emergency, a planned operation, or have a longer term condition requiring ongoing, or regular hospital care. 

Our next target

Children's Cancer Isolation Rooms

Our next aim is to help children with cancer, and who need to stay for long periods in hospital. By enhancing two childrens cancer isolation rooms on outwood ward. 

• Children often have to spend many nights in isolation rooms during the course of their cancer treatment, where they may have a compromised immune system. For example one local mum describes spending 15 nights in the room with her 6 year old son during his treatment.
• Being stuck in one room for many days at a time is incredibly challenging for children, and their families. We want to help change this.  
• We hope to completely refurbish the rooms, to make them more comfortable and welcoming. A real home from home. With a bed for parents to stay alongside their child, new brighter wall coverings, a desk space for children to get out of bed or keep school work going. The designs have been shaped by input from children and families.

Then what? 

If we can raise the money for the cancer isolation rooms, once they are completed we hope to support: 

• A bright new entrance mural - to help the whole children's ward to feel more welcoming to children of all ages. This mural will use ideas from local school children and our young patients. 
• Refurbish the Child Assessment Unit - with new seating and toys, so it feels more welcoming and caring for children of all ages. 
• Fund the FUN! We will upgrade the toys and play equipment, to help the brilliant Play Specialists support more children across the hospital. This will include providing an additional games console for older children, a sensory trolley, which particularly helps children with additional needs, as well as enhancing the other games and toys our play specialists use with children across the hospital.
• Upgrade entertainment for older children - with additional gaming trolleys for playing (age appropriate) games or watching films. 

How has your support helped already?

Since launching in 2024, your donations to the children's appeal have had a huge impact. You have helped to:

• Refurbish 'Giraffe Bay' - creating a new more age appropriate area for young children (opening very soon!) 
• Create a new, dedicated adolescent mental health area (opening very soon!)
• Transform a medical treatment room in the centre of the childrens ward (Outwood Ward)into a more child friendly space with new wall coverings, a sky ceiling, and additional equipment for play specialists and clinicians to use when explaining procedures to children of all ages (now open!)
• Create a new parents room for families of children in the hospital - open 24 hours a day for parents to take a moment away from the clinical environment, to rest in a comfortable space (final elements arriving and opening soon!)
• Refurbish the Children's Day Procedure Unit. Your donations funded an amazing transformation of this space - taking it from plain white walls, to a welcoming child friendly space. The CDPU us where children come for operations, or for their regular medication for serious long term illnesses.  
• Fund new vein finder machines. Your donations helped us fund two additional vein finder machines for the children's team. Making it quicker, and much easier for them to find children's veins where needed. Without needing to wait for the equipment to be available. 
• Provide three RockinR Gaming Troleys! These are portable Xbox based devices so children can play games in their hospital bed, or watch films. Feedback from children and parents has been amazing. 

Thank you 

The hospital cares for children with services from the Childrens Emergency Department, through to a dedicated childrens assessment unit, and a childrens inpatient ward (outwood Ward). Many children under the care of specialist hospitals elsewhere also receive much of their treatment (for example infusions, or regular blood transfusions) locally, right here here at East Surrey Hospital.

Donations to the childrens fund are designated for the purpose of enhancing care for children and their families in the area served by SASH NHS Trust. Any money remaining in the fund when the appeal concludes, or which cannot be used in the childrens services will support other charitable activities for patients and staff across SASH NHS Trust.