Brian House FAQ
What is Brian House Children’s Hospice?
Brian House Children’s Hospice provides care for children who have life threatening or life limiting illnesses. Brian House Children’s Hospice opened in 1996 and is available to your children and family if your child has a life threatening or life limiting condition.
Why is a Children’s Hospice needed?
For most children care in their home is best. However respite care, given at appropriate intervals, enables you and your family to have time for yourselves; to give you a break from the 24 hour demands of caring for a child with multiple complex needs and to have time for one another. We hope this also allows brothers and sisters time to have your sole attention for a while. Respite care also gives your child/young adult the stimulus of fresh company, provided by other children and the staff, for them to explore and enjoy the facilities of Brian House Children’s Hospice.
Do children have to have cancer to attend Brian House?
No. Most children who attend Brian House do not have a cancer related illness. Children with life threatening or life limiting illnesses attend Brian House.
How many children can come to Brian House?
Brian House can accommodate four children as in-patients, plus an additional four as day patients, with one emergency bed.
Do children at Brian House receive any teaching facilities?
During term time, if your child is of school age, arrangements are made to attend their normal education away from Brian House, often returning each afternoon when school has finished.
What other help can Brian House give to children?
Brian House Children’s Hospice is available for you when a sudden and unexpected emergency arises, by helping to accommodate your child during the day and overnight. If you are a parent or carer, you can talk to Brian House staff at any time for advice or for support. Click here for more details on the Brian House Children’s Hospice Outreach Service.
How does a child attend Brian House Children’s Hospice?
Referrals are accepted from all Health Care Professionals or members of the family with parents/carers’ permission.
Can parents stay with their children?
Facilities are available for you to stay with us if you wish. We find parents often stay on first admission to reassure mum and for her to teach the staff to care for her child as she does. Also, if mum is breast feeding her baby, or when a child is dying.
Does Brian House Children’s Hospice have special equipment for the children?
Yes it most certainly does! Equipment is available to extend your child’s sensory perception in touch, vision and sound. We have many facilities to enhance the lives of our patients. We have a team of skilled nurses specially trained in palliative care medicine, a Playworker and Health Care Assistants. They are able to bring their professional and practical knowledge to help in the myriad human predicaments that life produces.