A HOSPICE in the Conwy Valley is appealing for equipment so parents can spend time with terminally ill children.

Hope House Children’s Hospices have made an urgent plea for specialist equipment to help them safely continue to provide crisis and end of life care to youngsters.

Personal Protective Equipment is in chronically short supply throughout the United Kingdom, with organisations such as hospices unable to access it through their usual suppliers.

Tŷ Gobaith in Conwy, along with Hope House in Oswestry, is continuing to offer specialist nursing care to families during the Covid-19 pandemic.

They are also working to support the NHS and free up hospital beds and resources by helping to avoid children with life threatening conditions from being admitted to hospital and supporting children who have been discharged early from hospital for specialist care.

Karen Wright, director of care, said: “Not only do our nurses need to wear surgical gowns and masks, but parents do too if they are spending time with their child.

“We desperately need more equipment because we cannot get to the stage where parents are unable to be with their children and comfort them at the end of their lives. That would be unthinkable.”

The PPE equipment urgently needed includes:

Fluid resistant gowns and/or non fluid-resistant gowns

Fluid resistant masks (Type Two)

Respirators (FFP3)

Disposable full face visors

New guidelines mean that both nurses and parents need to wear protective equipment to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and to keep themselves and the children they are caring for safe.

If any company has access to any of the above items and can either donate or sell them to the hospices, telephone 01691 671999.