One in nine children across the UK suffer from bladder and bowel issues - that’s around three in every primary school class. Left untreated, these issues can cause long-term damage to children’s health and wellbeing.
Thousands of families are turning to ERIC, The Children’s Bowel & Bladder Charity for help. The charity is calling for greater awareness and funding for its services to keep this lifeline for families going. Unfortunately, cuts to essential children’s services in recent years have resulted in many children going undiagnosed for long periods, or unable to access the support they need quickly enough.
ERIC runs a helpline for families experiencing bladder and bowel issues. Over the last five years, the volume of calls received has increased by 215%.*
Juliette Rayner, CEO of ERIC said: “For 35 years, ERIC has been supporting families and helping to break down the stigma around these issues so that children and young people can access the support they desperately need.
“We rely on the support of donors to run our free helpline and provide online resources which act as lifelines for families who have nowhere else to turn. Our costs have gone up, but donations are much harder to secure at a time when people have less to give.
“It costs around £40 for a continence expert to provide 30 minutes’ telephone support to a young person. With your help, we can continue to ensure we’re there for those who need us”.
Donate to the ERIC Christmas Appeal to support children with continence issues at eric.org.uk
* The number of calls to ERIC’s helpline has risen from 1900 in the year to September 2019, to 5987 calls in the year to September 2024. This is the number of calls answered. The volume of calls received is much higher but unfortunately, as a small charity, we're unable to answer all the calls that come in.
