Our mission

Our vision is to deliver pioneering care through pregnancy, childhood and loss, whenever families need us, whatever their future holds.

We will make our vision a reality by:

• offering high quality, bespoke, specialist services for mums and dads to be, babies, children, and their families, coping with life-limiting conditions and living with loss
• being inclusive, accessible and available 24/7 in our hospice, at home, in hospital and in our communities
• ensuring every penny raised and every minute gifted is focussed on the needs of the families we support.

We do new things

It was obvious to us that parents can face difficult news much earlier than children’s hospices have ever handled before. So we set up a service to support families during pregnancy and birth. We were also the first children's hospice to employ a dedicated worker to support families in the first few days, weeks and months after the sudden and unexpected death of their child.

Only the best is good enough

The Care Quality Commission (CQC), which inspect hospices, rates us as ‘outstanding’. This puts us in the top 1% of all of the organisations they inspect. We’ll never stop working towards being the best we can be. 

We’re nurse-led 

Our children's hospice is led by a superb team of nurses and therapists. This means we design our care around each individual family and what they need, co-ordinating their care for them. It can be hugely challenging for families to have to navigate their way through dozens of different health- and social-care professionals and departments – so we do it for them. 

We’re determined to be a leading light 

Since day one we've been blazing a trail in children's hospice care, determined to lead the way in creating services and support for families who would otherwise have to struggle on alone. And to inspire other organisations with our approach.

We want to change how people see children's hospices 

You might expect a children's hospice to be a depressing place or like being in a hospital. You couldn't be more wrong - on both counts. Time after time, people who visit Russell House tell us they’re astonished that it's so full of laughter. And families tell us it's like their home-from-home. That's why we're here - to be the place where families can relax, talk to people who understand what they're going through and get the support they need to live the best lives they can.  

Our values

We live by our values, working together for families. We are:

Caring: We are one team and will always be kind, considerate and supportive.

Courageous: Together we have the strength and confidence to make brave choices.

Positive: We are passionate about making a difference and being the best we can be.

Pioneering: We challenge the status quo to make things better for children and families.

Genuine: We are true to ourselves and others.