Martin House Hospice's chief executive Martin Warhurst reflects on the past year.

"THIS year has seen Martin House Hospice Care for Children and Young People reach an important landmark, as we have celebrated our 30th anniversary.

When Martin House opened in 1987, it was only the second children’s hospice in the UK. Through the years much has changed as we’ve developed our building and services, but the family-led care we provide has remained absolutely at the heart of all we do.

So in our anniversary year it was important to us to make sure we celebrated with our families, both past and present. We invited families to join us for a service of celebration at Selby Abbey in the summer, and to a garden party at Martin House later in the year.

Our care team also came up with the idea of a music festival for our teenagers and young adults – and Lodgefest was born.

We brought in bands, comedy, magicians, street food, and we had DJ sets from one of our young people and our ambassador Jeff Hordley – Cain Dingle on Emmerdale – and we managed to bring the whole music festival experience to them. It was such a hit we’re now looking to make it an annual event.

It was also important to us to share our anniversary with the community, so we worked with artist Sarah Jane Palmer, our families and schools from across Yorkshire to develop an art project.

The result, called The Butterfly and The Bird, is an impressive inflatable interactive art installation, which we can take out to the community, and also use with our children at Martin House.

On top of this, we carried on caring for our children and their families, which includes respite stays where families enjoy time making memories together, and visits from our community team to support them at home.

We also give families the help they need through the saddest of times, at the end of their child’s life and afterwards, as our bereavement team support families, often for up two to three years after their child has died.

But our service isn’t cheap; it costs more than £6.5 million a year to run Martin House, and most of that is raised by the public.

The Martin House fundraising team organise events throughout the year, we also have a chain of 12 shops, and people from across the region continue to raise money for us – and we are incredibly grateful for every penny raised.

We’re now looking to develop our services for the next 30 years, to make sure we are still providing the care and support our families need now and in the future.”

* Every year Martin House Hospice supports more than 420 children and young people, and their families, along with 150 bereaved families across West, North and East Yorkshire, both at their hospice and in families’ own homes.

The hospice, based in Boston Spa, has nine bedrooms in Martin House, and six in Whitby Lodge, which cares for teenagers and young adults up to the age of 30 (and sometimes beyond). The services include respite stays, symptom control, emergency care, community care and end of life care.

Bereavement support is offered to families, often for two to three years after their child’s death. We also offer bereavement support to families whose child had a life-limiting condition but did not have the opportunity to use the hospice.

Martin House hosts one of only three specialist training places in the UK for consultants in paediatric palliative medicine, alongside placements in London (Great Ormond Street Hospital) and Cardiff.

There is no cost to any of the families using our services. It costs in excess of £6 million a year to provide this care, the majority of which comes from voluntary donations and fundraising."