Supporting young patients for 20 years
Located in Nottingham Children’s Hospital, the Youth Service has supported children and young people for 28 years. In 2025, 340 young people accessed the Youth Service through various methods, including 55 who attended the summer residential programme. Many of these young people have health conditions, including diabetes, epilepsy, renal and other conditions, that may limit their ability to attend school or extracurricular activities. This is where the Youth Service steps in - providing a special area where young people can go and talk to others in similar situations or with similar conditions.
Donna Hilton, Youth Service Manager, spoke about how Nottingham Hospitals Charity has supported them over the years.
“We support young people aged 11 to 21 years old that live with long-term health conditions. That that might mean that they may be staying in hospital or have access to the hospital regularly for appointments and treatment.
We provide a whole range of opportunities for young people that have been kindly supported by the charity. This includes a weekly youth club that’s run at the youth centre by QMC - the charity has supported the rent of the facility as well as a whole host of activities that bring young people together for peer support. These can include sports, arts, crafts, board games, cooking or anything where young people can be themselves in an environment where they can connect with other young people who know what it’s like to live with a health condition.
When we first started, we had nowhere to run our Youth Service hub from until we found what is now the youth room. It was an old, dusty office, but with the charity's support, we were able to make it nice and bright. We have a whole host of resources in here, from board games to games consoles and sofas, which allow young people to get away from the medical environment and come and have a bit of time out.
They can chat with the youth workers, engage with other young people in the hospital, and we run drop-ins in the afternoons, allowing them to escape the ward, connect with one another, and receive support from the youth team as needed.
As well as running the youth club, we’ve had a lot of equipment that goes into operating this youth room. And we have grants that help supply transport that can take us out on trips and residentials.
We also get support for our school holiday programmes, so when young people are off school, we provide them with lots of trips and events which they can get involved in and meet peers, grow their confidence, life skills and just connect with one another in an environment where they feel safe.
Many of them don’t get to do that with schools or other youth facilities because of their treatment times, so it’s really nice that they can come away with us and connect with others in similar situations.
The charity has also supported job roles, we’ve got an emotional health support worker in the team, and that was made possible by the charity, which initially funded the post. This was a much-needed team member. This came just after lockdown, and we were finding more and more of our young people were struggling with their anxiety and emotional health and we identified that having a dedicated support worker was a really valuable resource, and the charity kindly funded this.
One of the great activities that we do, is our summer residentials. We take around 30 patients out on a residential weekend and it’s invaluable to them as they’ve likely never stayed away from home, and they can take on activities that they wouldn’t usually be able to do. This also brings them together, which allows them to express themselves, help each other learn to manage their medication and just push themselves to where they think ‘oh I’ve got this health condition, but actually it doesn’t have to restrict me in doing something I enjoy’. By giving them these opportunities they can thrive and be like other young people in an environment where they are supported to do that.
The activities we do, the trips we go on and the staff that support our young people have all been thanks to the charity and their supporters.”
Without your ongoing support, we wouldn’t have been able to make this tremendous difference to young patients over the years.