As a charity, our aim is to provide entertainment and support to children struggling with serious and chronic illnesses and conditions. A large part of our work achieving this is by working with NHS hospital and hospice partners to reach children and young people receiving treatment and care in their settings.
We currently work in partnership with 35 NHS hospitals and 6 hospices and in today’s blog, our Director of Services, Laura Walter, shares more about this important area of our work.
“Spread a Smile’s journey started nearly 12 years ago in Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) when our Co-Founders started taking a small team of entertainers in twice a month to visit and provide entertainment to young patients on the wards. It wasn’t long before word of our work spread and demand for our in-hospital services started to grow, leading to expansion into other large specialist children’s hospitals and hospitals offering specialist care for young people such as St Mary’s Hospital, The Evelina Children’s Hospital, University College Hospital (UCLH).
“Being a London based charity, the natural focus for expansion has been London and surrounding areas and our partnerships have often started with approaches by hospitals for support, to compliment existing play services and help fill gaps in resource to provide children with distraction and opportunities for play.
“When the Covid pandemic hit, we were no longer able to go into hospital to visit children in person. This was devastating for everyone involved and at a time where children in hospital needed play opportunities, support, and distraction more than ever before. So, we quickly started to offer our services virtually – initially to our hospital partners and any children struggling with illness who needed support. As a result, this has led us to expand our services beyond London to larger specialist children’s hospitals across England such as Bristol Royal Hospital for Children and Nottingham Children’s Hospital, offering virtual entertainment that can be accessed from anywhere.
“In recent years, we have also started to support smaller District General Hospitals around London, prioritising those with Paediatric
Oncology Shared Care Units (POSCU). These hospitals often don’t have access to the same resources and support in areas such as play and entertainment. Our aim is to provide a regular touchpoint for young patients coming through these hospitals, giving them ways to access our services should they be referred somewhere else or need us virtually.
“Going forward, demand for our services is ever growing and we have spent time over the past few months looking at this need and how we can provide the best support with the most impact. As we head into 2025/26, we’ll be focussing on equalising support across our London based specialist hospitals and continuing to try and reach as many children and young people as possible with serious and chronic illnesses in this area. We know from experience, that this is where our work can have the most impact. We will also continue to support our current 6 hospice and District General Hospital partners.
“Beyond that, we’ll be developing our work supporting specialist children’s hospitals across the country with the aim of eventually supporting every one of these settings in England. This piece of work has already started with our work in the North West providing in person visits monthly to The Christie Hospital in Manchester and we are looking forward to expanding into two more hospitals in the North West over the coming year.
“When we visit a hospital, although the partnership may focus on supporting the most seriously unwell children, no child is ever left out. Our entertainers can be found singing to children in reception areas, waiting for general appointments, doing magic tricks for parents in waiting rooms and generally spreading smiles to any child visiting a hospital.
“Our plan is to do what we do now as well as possible and to maximum effect. Then as we grow as a charity we’re excited to reach into new areas and new parts of the country, spreading the Spread a Smile magic to as many families that need us as possible.”
To stay up to date about our plans and work, please sign up to our monthly e-newsletter. We’d also love to hear from you if you or your company can support or fundraise for us in any way. Email the team today at fundraising@spreadasmile.org
Thank you.
