ACT the national charity, which represents children with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions and their families, welcomes Sonja Ezergailis as their new Project Manager of the joint ACT and ACH Mapping Tool.

Sonja joined the ACT team on the 8^th of October and will oversee the development and implementation of the Children’s Palliative Care Mapping Tool. This will enable the collection of standardised data on the numbers of children with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions, and the services that are available to support them.

The tool will help ACT and ACH to develop strengthened evidence of the numbers of children with palliative care needs and will help to create an expanded national online directory of services. Another benefit will be to help identify the gaps in provision and to show where services should be developed.

The Mapping Tool has been successfully piloted in the Wirral and Sonja will work closely with the Project Lead based in Merseyside to undertake the initial roll-out across Merseyside and Cheshire. She will then work with the National Steering Group to lead the implementation of the toolkit across the United Kingdom.

Before this role Sonja was the Care Development Manager for the Association of Children’s Hospices (ACH), which advocates on behalf of all UK children’s hospice services, and the children and families they care for. She shared knowledge, expertise and best practice, as well as promoting, developing and supporting the work of children’s hospice services and raising awareness of what they do.

Prior to this Sonja worked as a Nurse Manager within Children’s Services for the NHS and has worked in senior nursing roles in both statutory and voluntary healthcare organisations, including in a Children’s Hospice Service.

Sonja Ezergailis, ACT’s new Project Manager, says: “ I am delighted to be taking on this valuable role. The Mapping Tool will allow us to see where new services must be developed for these children across the country and will help us to evaluate the number of children who currently need palliative care. ”

“ I am looking forward to working with the Project Lead in Merseyside, as well as the National Steering Group, to provide a groundbreaking resource in paediatric palliative care. “

Lizzie Chambers, Chief Executive of ACT, says: “Prior to this tool there has not been a resource to accurately identify the number of children with palliative care needs. It has been difficult to plan for new services and see exactly what needs to be developed. As a result families have really had to struggle to gain access to the care that they need. We hope that the Mapping Tool will make a real difference to the lives of these families. ”