Our 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. Without your help, we wouldn’t be able to enhance our amazing hospital to give children and families the very best experience.

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.

Our charity funds 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. It will also fund hi-tech distraction equipment proven to reduce pain and anxiety in our patients, to ensure faster appointments without sedation. Donations help the charity 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 the hospital is 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, fully funding the design and construction of a brand-new bereavement centre on the hospital campus and ensuring our brand-new residential mental health unit is a brilliant home from home for those young people that need our help the most.

We need your support for our Surgical Neonatal Appeal

The charity’s latest Appeal is for a state-of-the-art unit for newborn babies in Liverpool and was launched by Liverpool Legend and Charity Champion 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 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) on behalf of the 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 will offer 22 neonatal cots, including 8 ICU and 13 HDU cots and will feature 18 individual family rooms where parents can be alongside their poorly new-borns whilst they’re receiving expert care. Charity funding for the £26m project 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 newborns, 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.

Join our Regular Giving programme

Making a regular monthly donation of just £5 per month allows us to plan ahead and commit to projects and funding requirements ahead of time, ensuring our patients are looked after now, tomorrow and the day after.

Consider leaving a gift in your will

At Alder Hey Children’s Charity, gifts in wills left by kind supporters are transforming the lives of our young patients and their families. These special gifts help develop crucial new treatments, fund state-of-the-art medical equipment and create magical ward experiences during a child’s time at Alder Hey. As an NHS charity funds come entirely from donations, events and gifts in wills, contributed by a nation of caring people, people who want to leave a parting gift that will create a brighter future for the next generation.

Alder Hey Children’s Charity is an independent registered charity (charity number 1160661).