Children in Hospital for Extended Periods (Report to Parliament)

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the merits of providing financial support for parents of children receiving care in hospital for extended periods.

My constituent Ceri Menai-Davis contacted me after the loss of his six-year-old son Hugh to a rare cancer on 18 September 2021. He and his wife Frances are in the Gallery today. They had a terrible ordeal for more than 10 months, attending hospital and at times commuting daily, as they watched their son rapidly decline over a number of months in hospital from a sporty youngster to his sad passing. When Mr Menai-Davis contacted me at the end of 2021, he and his wife had just set up a charity called It’s Never You, which are the words that Mrs Menai-Davis said to her husband when they got the diagnosis. They wanted to help parents of very ill children in hospital with mental and physical support and to call for some financial help.

Cases where children are in hospital for extended periods are rare. The reply I received to a written question showed that about 4,000 children a year spend more than two months continuously in hospital. Of course, not all of those are cases where the parents go to hospital every day or stay there.

Mr Menai-Davis asked if I could arrange for him to meet a Health Minister to lobby for better care of parents. I did that, and the then Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), held a meeting with us on 24 March 2022, where he heard about a range of practical problems with care for parents in hospitals, including the availability of food and mental support. The Minister asked for full details, and we prepared documents, which we sent to him, to inform the work on the new generation of children’s hospitals, including on facilities for parents of very sick children. He responded constructively on issues of outreach to parents, food for parents staying in hospital with children, improved facilities for families in the new hospitals programme and linking NHS charities with the work of It’s Never You.

Through my constituents’ charity, parents or guardians of sick children benefit by connecting with a community of peers, finding support, including moral support, sharing experiences, and getting professionally sourced and reliable information via a social network. That is done not by the statutory authorities but through the Children’s Cancer Platform, which is the UK’s only platform built exclusively to support parents in this difficult situation. The charity has started to put wellbeing bags into hospitals such as Addenbrooke’s and Great Ormond Street; they are about to go into Oxford University Hospitals as well. The bags are well received. The charity is also present in Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds and many more places. It has partnered with several charities across the UK and aims to form an umbrella, whereby all relevant charities can be found in one place.