A PLEA to help a cash-strapped children's hospice is being taken to the top.

Social Services Minister Liam Byrne is being asked at a meeting in Whitehall tonight for Government help for the Butterwick Hospice for children on Teesside, and to children's hospices in general.

The plea is to be made by Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland Labour MP Ashok Kumar and Graham Leggatt-Chidgey, the chief executive of Butterwick Hospice.

Dr Kumar said the hospice was financed primarily by charitable funding, lottery grants and by direct funding from the NHS through local primary care trusts.

The MP said: "The Butterwick Hospice has particular problems, because its lottery funding ends in a few weeks time.

"They are hopeful of securing extra funding from the NHS, but as they admit children from a wide geographical area, both in and around Teesside, they have to approach no fewer than 15 primary care trusts, a task which is complex and bureaucratic.

"The real problem for children's hospices is that they only receive a small amount of funding from the NHS, when compared to the funding adult hospices receive.

"The key issue I want to put to Liam Byrne is to firstly look at the particular funding difficulties faced by the Butterwick Hospice and then, secondly, to look at the general argument over the funding for the children's hospice movement.''

Dr Kumar said if a local children's hospice like the Butterwick was to close or to contract it would be devastating for families and add a burden to local hospital and social services that might have to step in.