A children’s hospice charity has launched a five-year plan to double the number of families it supports and increase its income by at least 25%.

Demelza, which has hospices in Sittingbourne and Eltham, now works with 650 people a year. It aims to help 1,300 by 2021.

It anticipates it will need to hire another 20 to 30 staff over the period, adding to the 300 who already work with the charity and expand its network of 1,000 volunteers by about 100.

The drive, led by chief executive Ryan Campbell, is to address the changing nature of care for children with life-limiting conditions and their families.

The charity, which has nine beds in its Sittingbourne hospice and six in Eltham, aims to provide more services to its users within their own homes.

Mr Campbell, who has been in post for a year and a half, said: “If you live in Margate with three kids, one of whom is poorly, and don’t have a car, then getting to Sittingbourne for a weekend is quite a big deal.

“It doesn’t suit everyone so we need to go out and deliver care where people are.

“We already do some of that with the therapies we offer but we don’t offer nursing care in people’s own homes and we want to be able to do that.” The charity, which covers the whole of Kent and parts of East Sussex, estimates it works with about 20% of eligable families within its catchment area.

A large part of its expansion drive is down to the growing number of children with life-limiting illnesses, which is expected to double within 20 years.

Five years ago the hospice dealt with one or two neonatal infant cases a month. Today it is about four times that figure.

Mr Campbell said: “This is actually a good thing. The reason is advances in medicine and science.

“It is doing two things. Some children who would not have made it to birth are being born and surviving.

“It might be for a short amount of time but they are surviving and that time is very precious for the families.

“On the other hand, some conditions where people might have been expected to die in childhood are actually being treated so they can live into their 20s and 30s.

“That is challenging as we are a children’s service and have got staff for toddlers but not for 20-year-olds.

“The difficulty is that adult palliative care tends to be set up for 75-year-olds with cancer. You do not fit there if you are a 21-year-old with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which is a very rare progressive condition, where an adult needs more-and-more help with day-to-day activities.

“We need to make sure there is support there for people as they grow up and want independence.”

Demelza, which has 24 charity shops, of which 18 are in Kent, needs to increase its income by a quarter to cope with the large cost of its ambitions.

It spent £6.7m providing care in the year to September 2015, growing to £10.5m once wages and other costs are taken into account.

Mr Campbell, who has published the hospice’s aims in a five-year strategy document, said the costs of providing care are now closer to £8m and due to rise under its new outreach model.

He aims to increase income through fundraising, its charity shops and its charity lottery.

He said: “It is certainly achievable and isn’t out of step with the growth path of Demelza in history.”