Children's hospice to undergo £6.3m expansion

A children's hospice is to undergo a £6.3m expansion to "future-proof the site".

Kevin Clements, chief executive of East Anglia's Children's Hospices (EACH), said demand on services at The Treehouse in Ipswich had grown "year-on-year".

The expansion would see a new hydrotherapy pool, a new therapy suite and a larger kitchen and dining area for families.

The charity said about £4m of funding was already in place and it had until October 2027 to raise the rest of the money.

EACH has more than 50 charity shops and 2,000 volunteers.

Clements said the way the hospice delivered care was changing.

He said: "This project will enable us to provide more space for group activities, wellbeing activities, bereavement support.

"It provides more privacy for families when we are managing end-of-life care for babies, children and young people."

Debbie Streatfield has been visiting The Treehouse since it opened in 2011.

Her daughter Ava, 15, had a hypoxic event during her birth, which causes a lack of oxygen or blood to go to the brain.

Streatfield said her daughter had "defied all the odds" and did not think her family "would have been able to survive" without the support from EACH.

She said people believed children's hospices were "really sad places", but there was "so much joy" at The Treehouse.

"I wish people could see the other side to children's hospices - they're so valuable and they make such a difference," she said.

Laura Jenkins, service manager at The Treehouse, said the expansion would also provide a private entrance for bereaved families, which would "make a big difference".

She said the larger hydrotherapy pool would allow families to swim together - and in some cases, a parent could "hug their child properly for the first time in a long time", as the pool would make older or larger children "weightless".

Planning permission for the expansion was granted in November.

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