Swanbourne gardens, situated in Edgeley is a NHS respite centre for children with complex health needs. They may be life limited and/or life threatened. 

Instead of closing, this facility should be expanded to accommodate more families as at present many qualify but are unable to access care/respite. 

The centre provided a safe home from home with staff trained to perform medical care and enhance life experiences of the children who attend. 

Losing this facility will be detrimental to families like ours. Plans may be to outsource care to agencies or other already overstretched facilities.

Until in this situation it is hard to understand just essential a place like Swanbourne is to families, it provides a lifeline to families who have been through things no family should ever have to go through. 

There is a side of me that feels this is a futile fight. Where money is involved, decisions like this are often taken away from people like us and any opportunity to appeal against it etc are purely lip service. I hope this not to be the case and make this petition on a whim it may help. 

many have  argued over the years that other areas of the UK don’t have this set up - that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist! Over the years services have dwindled and they went from helping around 30 families to around 7 ish (something like that). Many families meet criteria but are told there isnt space or staff. So families struggle in spite of their high need for help. A bigger place with more staff is needed. Hospices only provide around 10 nights care per year and whilst this is also essential, many parent carers need much more. 

My daughter, Amy-Rose suffered a huge unexpected brain injury when being born in 2014. After a perfectly healthy pregancy, she went into shock and was delivered by emergency csection. She was resuscitated, ventilated and transferred to NICU for cooling (to prevent further brain injury). We were told she would not make it through the night. Day by day little bits of progress was made and we were so lucky to be able to bring her home. She has severe cerebral palsy. She has epilepsy, bronchiectasis, osteopenia and is solely tube fed into her bowel. Medically there is a lot going on. A lot of appointments, therapies, medications, procedures and admissions. We have almost lost her several times. In spite of all of this, Amy is an incredibly resilient and sociable little girl. She lives an amazing happy life. She adores music, her family and friends, musical toys and so much more. Everyday is dedicated to making more memories, minimising pain and having her as happy as possible. She started going to Swanbourne when she was only 10 months old. She has been going almost 12 years. The staff know her so well and she adores going. It helps her socially and gives her some independence from us and her lovely but pesky baby sister. What Swanbourne has done for us cannot be put into words. Amy’s level of care need is extremely high. She has daily inhalers, nebulisers, pep mask, bloods, suction and more as well as approx 30 syringes of meds per day. Finding people confident and able to care for her whilst also engaging with her is so so important to all of us. It is a 24 hour job, one i love, but also we do need that time away. I hope by sharing our story you feel compelled to sign and share. We are fortunate to be friends with some of the other swanbourne families and can attest to how important this petition is to them as well.