A police chief has been given a tour of Worcester's "impressive" children's hospice.

David Shaw, the chief constable of West Mercia police and his wife Juliet visited Acorns in Bath Road to see how the hospice delivers specialist care to life limited children.

The police's brass band raises money for the hospice.

A the visit, the charity's chief executive David Strudley re-iterated the hospice's ambitious plans to increase the number of children and families using its services by 50 per cent.

As we reported last year, Acorns has a five year strategy for growth which it developed after discovering there were more children who needed the hospice's help than previously realised.

The charity wants to go from helping 640 children to 960 and increase the number of families it supports from 900 to 1,290 by 2018.

Mr Strudley said: “We aim to increase the number of children and families using Acorns’ services by 50% by 2018, which will mean an overall increase in annual care costs of around £4.2m by the end of the period.”

He said the charity aims to achieve this by expanding its in-house respite and emergency services, developing partnerships with similar care providers and developing an at home care service.

Mr Shaw and his wife were given a tour of the hospice by Mr Strudley and the hospice’s head nurse Debra Clark.

Mr Shaw said: “Juliet and I were honoured to meet some of the team and to be given such an insightful tour around the hospice’s impressive facilities, which clearly benefit the children and families there enormously.

“We were both struck by the growing demand for the care and support offered by Acorns and we are very pleased to be able to support the outstanding work of the team through funding raised by West Mercia Police Brass Band.”