Alder Hey Children's Charity

Alder Hey Children’s Charity raises vital funds to help make Alder Hey Children's Hospital a truly world-class, patient-friendly hospital for the 330,000 patients and families we care for every year.

Since April 2013, over £65m has been raised for a range of life-saving medical equipment and facilities that are making a real difference to families every day - but we still need your support.

Support our Surgical Neonatal Appeal

Our new Appeal is for a state-of-the-art unit for newborn babies in Liverpool, and was launched by Liverpool Legend Jamie Carragher.

Jamie, who was treated at Alder Hey’s neonatal ward for the first six weeks of his life,  launched the appeal to raise £3m for the new Surgical NICU on behalf of Alder Hey Children’s Charity in September 2021.

The new Surgical NICU is a joint project between Alder Hey and Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust as the Liverpool Neonatal Partnership.

The new unit is planned to offer a further 22 neonatal cots for Liverpool and will feature 18 individual family rooms where parents can be alongside their poorly new-borns whilst they’re receiving expert care.

The unit will address a shared concern between Liverpool Women’s and Alder Hey that babies who need specialist surgery currently have to be transferred to Alder Hey to get the specialist surgical care they need and are then transferred back to Liverpool Women’s Hospital to continue their specialist neonatal care.

The planned facility will cost £16.5m to build with the Charity Appeal aiming to contribute at least £3m.

Charity funding will provide ‘over and above’ enhancements and equipment for both the clinical space and family areas, elevating it from a facility that provides families with a safe and secure environment for them and their new-borns, to a truly world-class facility that wraps-around families with the most vulnerable babies in the region.Specialist neonatal staff from Liverpool Women’s Hospital will plan to work alongside Alder Hey at the new NICU ensuring that poorly babies are transferred between the two hospitals as little as possible.

Why an NHS hospital needs your support 

Children and young people have very different requirements from a hospital than adult patients. The charity recognises this and helps to fund state of the art equipment and a range of activities and projects that are designed to enhance and improve the lives of our amazing young patients when they are being treated.

We fund specialist medical equipment which ensures our brilliant surgeons and clinical staff have the most up to date state-of-the-art technology available to them – often equipment that is just not available yet via the NHS. We also fund hi-tech distraction equipment proven to reduce pain and anxiety in our patients, ensure faster appointments without sedation. Donations help us support a vast range of programmes and special projects such as our ward musicians, our on-site magician and the play specialists we have on every ward. Our ground-breaking ward-based chef programme ensures we are delivering healthy and nutritionally balanced food to all our patients when they need it most.

In the last few years donations large and small have enabled us to complete an incredibly important new research and education facility as well as fully funding the design and construction of a brand new bereavement centre on the hospital campus. We continue to raise money and awareness to help with an amazing facility opening in 2022 which will impact on mental health services for children and young people for decades to come.

You can donate to help to make a difference to thousands of children every year from across the country.