We have been closely monitoring the likely impact of COVID-19 on our service plans this year and have reluctantly come to the difficult decision to postpone all our Spring and Summer camps and some of our Autumn camps as follows:

• South Siblings Camp, Bryanston School, Dorset: Sun 5th to Thurs 9th Apr 
• South Family Camp, Bryanston School, Dorset: Fri 10th to Sun 12th Apr 
• Midlands Family Camp, Whitemoor Lakes, Lichfield: Fri 8th (BH) to Sun 10th May 
• Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation Family Camp, Whitemoor Lakes, Lichfield: Fri 8th (BH) to Sun 10th May 
• Bristol Immunology Family Camp, Summit Centre, Wales: Sat 23rd to Mon 25th (BH) May 
• SNAC Family Camp. Tulliallan, Fife: Fri 5th to Sun 7th June 
• Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Family Camp, Tulliallan, Fife: Fri 5th to Sun 7th June 
• Scotland Health Challenge Camp, Strathallan, Perth: Mon 6th to Sat 11th July 
• Scotland Siblings Camp,  Strathallan, Perth: Mon 6th to Sat 11th July 
• South Health Challenge, Bryanston School, Dorset: Mon 27th Jul to Sat 1st Aug 
• Midlands Health Challenge, Whitemoor Lakes, Lichfield: Mon 17th to Fri 21st Aug 
• Anthony Nolan Family Camp, Whitemoor Lakes, Lichfield: Sat 29th to Mon 31st (BH) Aug 
• Inflammatory Bowel Disease Family Camps, Whitemoor Lakes, Lichfield: Sat 29th to Mon 31st (BH) Aug 
• Children’s Heart Surgery Fund Camp, Dearne Valley, Doncaster: Fri 18th to Sun 20th Sept 
• Teen Health Challenges Camp, Kings Park, Northampton: Fri 2nd to Sun 4th Oct
• Debra Family Camp, Whitemoor Lakes, Lichfield: Fri 16th to Sun 18th Oct
• Allergy Health Challenges Camp, Whitemoor Lakes, Lichfield: Fri 30th Oct to Sun 1st Nov.

We have deferred a decision on our remaining Autumn camps until more information is available.

Our priority is always the safety and wellbeing of the seriously ill children and family members we serve and our assessment, supported by statements and analysis from the Department of Health and Social Care and others, concerning the likely trajectory of the spread and extent of COVID-19 on the UK population means we cannot reasonably rely on having sufficient clinical and adult volunteers available to enable us to provide a safe camp environment.

We are enormously disappointed that we’ve had to take this decision, but we are energetically exploring what other options we might put in place to engage with our campers and volunteers during this extremely challenging time.

We are anticipating running camps in 2021 and will be contacting those families and volunteers who have been offered places this year when making those plans.

UPDATE: 17/04/20

We very much regret that we’ve had to make the difficult decision to cancel all our Autumn camps this year. 

This is because we deem it highly unlikely that we will be able to provide sufficient clinical and other volunteer support to ensure a safe environment at any camp this year. We have therefore pivoted our limited resources towards developing and delivering some other meaningful services to our campers and their families. 

We are now actively developing ‘Camp in the Cloud’, our online service aimed at delivering the best elements of camp into the homes of those who were offered a place at our 2020 camps and those on the waiting lists.  

We’ll send families more exciting information about the Camp in the Cloud programme together with dates very shortly and sincerely hope to be able to resume our camp programmes next year.  

Kevin Mathieson, CEO