Families’ joy as much loved Liverpool hospice gets expansion go-ahead

Claire House Children’s Hospice is expanding its Liverpool site to offer 24-7 care16:05, 05 Jul 2026Updated 16:05, 05 Jul 2026Claire House in West Derby. Pictured mum Amelia Christie with her son Oliver, five. Photo by Colin Lane(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)Families who rely on a vital Liverpool children’s hospice for care have spoken of their relief and appreciation for the service after its expansion plans got the go-ahead. Claire House Children’s Hospice in West Derby secured vital permission from Liverpool City Council to grow its site on Honey’s Green Lane into a round-the-clock service to support hundreds of seriously ill babies, children and young adults.The hospice was given the former Carmelite Monastery site in West Derby in 2017 and has since carried out minor internal refurbishment to areas on the ground floor to make it functional and usable for daycare facilities for families and children. For many families, distance has long been one of the biggest barriers to accessing hospice care when they need it most.Long journeys to the charity’s Wirral hospice have often meant families spending precious time travelling, rather than being together. Amelia Christie has been supported by the organisation since her 20-week scan with son Oliver.She said: “We found out that Oliver had a serious heart condition. He had hypoplastic left heart syndrome and Claire House has actually been with us ever since that 20-week scan.“They’ve been there through night and day when he’s been in hospital. Oliver does hydro swimming at the Wirral hospice and also he does respite as well. So literally Claire House is the family that we never knew we needed until we were introduced to them at the 20-week scan.”The development will allow for bedrooms to be installed for much-needed overnight respite services, as well as private suites where families can spend time with their child after they have died. Therapeutic spaces, including a hydrotherapy pool, will be brought in alongside emotional and practical support services for the whole family.Amelia, 35, from Formby, said the hospice managed to make the difficult decisions facing her family easier to process. She said: “We got told that there was something wrong with the heart and we needed to go to foetal medicine for a more in-depth scan. Claire House were already there and they said, ‘Would you like Claire House involved in this meeting?’”Obviously it was extremely daunting, the meeting. There were lots of, you know, big medical words that we’d never heard of, myself and my husband, and that’s when Claire House came in and put those medical words into English for us. And they were really like, ‘This is very daunting news, but we can have a plan A, B, C, we can have a plan Z if you want to’.”Amelia explained how Oliver has received vital support following open heart surgery in March and the hospice was able to provide the relief for her too. She said: “He absolutely adores going.“He was just in respite last week, in all honesty. He only stayed two nights and then when we picked him up, he cried, he didn’t want to leave.“We actually attended a wedding last week when Oliver was in respite and I just was like, ‘I just feel so relaxed and so calm’. To be at that wedding and knowing that Oliver was in the best care ever and when it was really hot as well, they had air conditioning. So, he was really, really well looked after. And I just feel so much more relaxed as well now after those two nights of respite.“You need that as myself, you know, I wasn’t mum. I was Amelia again and as a couple as well as husband and wife, we needed that because we don’t get time alone.”Chief executive David Pastor(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)David Pastor is chief executive of Claire House and oversees the care of 500 babies, children, young people, and families every year. He said securing the planning permission was like “we’ve collected our number and we’re just on the starting line”.He said: “It’s taken us such a long time to get here. We first really decided that we desperately needed a hospice in Liverpool in 2014 and we found the site really, really quickly, which is great.“Through all sorts of twists and turns, we nearly got ourselves to planning, so we had outline planning in 2018. Then covid happened just at the point we were going to develop some really detailed plans and so we had to take a step back and here we are finally in 2026 and ready to go.“It’s just such a relief and we’re so proud to have got planning permission and now our dream can become a reality.” It is expected the build will begin in January next year with a view to opening in 2029.David said work now begins to raise the vital funds required for the scheme. He added: “Obviously the crucial part of that is then the fundraising side of things.Claire House in West Derby. Photo by Colin Lane(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)“We’ve got to a point now where we’ve been able to save about £10m just through trying to run Claire House really, really well and obviously the huge support of the people of Merseyside and we wouldn’t be here without them.“Now here comes the really hard fundraising task in earnest where we’ve got to raise another £13m to get the project over the line but it’s great to be able to start that properly now that we have planning permission.” For families like Jill Jones’ from Orrell Park, who is mum to four-year-old Joshy Farrell, the new hospice isn’t just about convenience, it’s the reassurance and proximity they desperately need during their most vulnerable moments.She said: “Any temperature means a 48-hour hospital stay for Joshy – so having Claire House Liverpool just 15 minutes from home, and right next to Alder Hey, gives us the reassurance we desperately need. So many children need this place, it benefits everyone.“It’s reassuring for families to know if their child had complex needs, they’d be in safe hands. It’s a community.“Liverpool gets behind everything, I know we can make this happen.”Claire House in West Derby. Pictured: mum Karen Roberts with her son Dylan,18 and carer Luke Causer. Photo by Colin Lane(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)Karen Roberts’ son Dylan, 18, has complex needs relating to cerebral palsy. The family travel from Southport to the Wirral site for respite care four times a year.Karen said: “It’s really good because obviously we feel safe leaving Dylan with them. So when we leave him and go away, we get a really good break. It refreshes us and plus it gives me time to spend with the other children because obviously Dylan’s needs sometimes take over some of the stuff we can’t do.“It just gives us time to kind of have a little break and refresh ourselves ready for the next kind of week ahead. He really loves the staff and the care he gets, he gets really excited about coming and plus he meets friends who are already here that he’s made friends with or other people we know who come and because he’s so happy to come and we know that he’s getting all the care and attention he needs.“It just gives us that relief really, and he just loves the place, the atmosphere, the kind of fun it is.”