Acorns Children's Hospice is committed to activity in research and development that will improve care within the organisation and the quality of experience for the families which the organisation serves.

The Research Aims to:

• Enable a focused and informed response to family and staff needs.
• Enable a validated focus on core principles and values of paediatric palliative care.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the services provided to families.
• Ascertain staff needs so they are appropriately skilled and updated for any research they wish to undertake.

Development Aims to:

• Provide opportunities for feedback from service users.
• Celebrate and disseminate evidence-based practice.
• Support individual staff and teams.
• Provide a forum that encourages collaborative partnership between voluntary agencies, health services, higher education institutions and local authorities.