Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice in Huddersfield is calling for fair and sustainable NHS funding so it can keep providing care, as a new UK-wide report shows the growing pressure on children’s hospices.

The call comes as Together for Short Lives, the leading UK-wide charity for children living with serious illness, publishes a new report to mark Children’s Hospice Week (June 15-21).

It finds that children’s hospices spent, on average, 18% more on their services in 2025-26 than the year before, while funding from local NHS bodies has not kept pace.

In 2026-27, Forget Me Not needs £7m to operate, over 80% of which the charity must raise itself through fundraising, retail and other income generation initiatives.

Gareth Pierce, chief executive at Forget Me Not, said: “We are facing an incredibly difficult reality.

“Costs are rising sharply but our income is simply not keeping pace. As a result, we’ve had to make some heartbreaking decisions – including cutting back our short breaks and changing how we prioritise support, which means we are now able to offer far less to families than we have in the past.

“We are having to prioritise the care we provide based on the resources available to us, and that means there will be families we are simply unable to support. That is not a position any children’s hospice should be in.

“At the same time, demand is growing in both scale and complexity. Children are being diagnosed earlier and living longer with more complex conditions – which should mean more support, not less.

“Yet we’re having to reduce services at precisely the moment families need us most.

“There is also a growing move within the NHS to deliver more care in the community and outside of hospital.

“We absolutely support that ambition but we cannot achieve it without the sustainable funding needed to make it a reality.

“Without urgent action, the gap between what families need and what we can provide will only continue to widen.”