The University of Huddersfield and The Forget Me Not Children's Hospice Limited KTP 24_25 R1

Children’s hospices across the UK are struggling to stay afloat financially, and one of them—Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice in West Yorkshire—is building a new business model to survive. The problem is stark. Most children’s hospices rely heavily on charitable donations and government grants, but demand for their services is rising while funding is not. Without a sustainable financial structure, some hospices risk closure, leaving families with seriously ill children without specialist palliative care, respite, and bereavement support. This project aims to fill that gap by creating a formal, replicable framework—called the “Forget-Me-Not Blueprint”—that turns the hospice into what the researchers call a “learning organisation”: one that continuously adapts its operations, fundraising, and service delivery based on data and experience. If successful, the Blueprint could transform how children’s hospices operate nationwide. Rather than each hospice reinventing the wheel, the framework would give them a tested, practical tool to improve financial resilience without cutting care. The impact is not on a factory floor or a power grid—it is on the quiet, essential infrastructure of paediatric palliative care, a system most people never think about until they need it. This is applied organisational research with a direct, concrete goal: keeping hospice doors open for the families who depend on them.