Giggle Doctor visits for children in hospital

We want to say a big thank you for your very kind support for our Giggle Doctor programme through Global Giving. At the Theodora Children’s charity, we improve children’s experience of hospital. By combining music, play and storytelling, Giggle Doctors improve wellbeing and bring magical moments to children facing huge challenges with their health. We have been visiting children in hospitals, hospices and specialist care centres across England for 25 years. Last year, our 24 Giggle Doctors visited more than 33,000 sick and disabled children.

The best way to show the impact of your support is to share with you some of the wonderful feedback we receive from families of the children we visit.

“I remember the first day we met the Giggle Doctors. I still have a video of it. You can see Theodore, sitting on a chair, surrounded by two Giggle Doctors, all smiles. Back then he loved bubbles, so they were blowing bubbles, and Theodore sat watching, looking amazed. I had tears in my eyes. It was so wonderful to see him that happy in spite of everything. The Giggle Doctors allow you to forget about everything that is going on. For a moment you just laugh and smile. It takes you away from it all. That’s really wonderful. The impact of the Giggle Doctor visits has lasted years. We still talk about it regularly and show Theodore the videos’’. Parent

A more positive experience in hospital has been shown to aid recovery and the Giggle Doctors change the energy in the room, simply by being fully present for each child. 

During their visits they aim to:

• Reduce distress and anxiety
• Increase opportunities for play in the healthcare environment
• Improve wellbeing

Each interaction is tailored to the child and the Giggle Doctor visits are designed to provide whatever the child needs at the time, whether it’s a joke, a song or simply companionship.

"The Giggle Doctors came to see my daughter when she was inconsolable. After a few minutes of ringing their gentle bells and lovely lights she stopped crying and was mesmerised. They listened to my worries and sympathised too. They are Ladies with hearts of gold. Thank you so so much Dr Dotty and Dr Snug!" Parent

Measuring the impact of your support

We work closely with hospital staff to monitor the quality of our work through regular meetings. We collect feedback from children’s families through our online survey which is open all year round. This provides us with detailed information about the impact of the Giggle Doctor visits. We also carry out in depth interviews with parents of children who have been seen by the Giggle Doctors and who are keen to share their story with us. Through this we are able to learn more about their child and the impact our visits have had. In addition to the parent feedback survey we also send out a survey to NHS staff twice a year. 

“They always bought a smile to my child's face and distracted her from her gruelling treatment. It was wonderful to be able to appreciate small moments of laughing together, a great stress relief for all of us at a very hard time. They are just magical!” Parent

How your support helps children like Georgia

We recently received this lovely feedback from a hospital play specialist whose own child was in hospital;

“I had an experience a couple of weeks ago of being on the other side when I bought my daughter into hospital for surgery. Georgia sometimes struggles with anxieties, primarily about new things, new people and changes of routines. I anticipated she would find surgery tricky and, being a play specialist, did lots of preparation!! All went really well until Georgia’s nurse bought over the BP machine, she panicked and clung onto me whilst crying and unable to engage. At this point I thought it would be impossible to calm her down, as it often is at home! 
  
However, Dr Snug arrived at just that point and skillfully won Georgia over to a point where she was happily interacting with the magic and giggling! Dr Snug even helped to get her interacting with her lovely nurse so she could apply the local anaesthetic cream and ID band. The rest of the morning went really well and her anaesthetic induction was calm and controlled, she drifted off to sleep happily (much to my surprise!). 
  
I can’t thank Dr Snug enough for her help in calming Georgia down and helping her manage what was potentially a very tricky morning for her. Thank you Dr Snug and all the Theodora team for making these visits possible. Georgia still talks about Dr Snug now, she was definitely the high point of her hospital adventure.” Parent

Thank you

Thank you so much for choosing to support our Giggle Doctor programme, enabling us to bring fun and laughter to children in hospital at a time when they need it most. Without your support, our work would not be possible. 

If you have any questions or would like to talk further about our work, please feel free to get in touch.