Meeting and making friends

Being in hospital can feel a bit lonely, but Evelina London is full of children just like you. You could make new friends, and it’s really easy to stay in touch with friends from home too.

Here are some of our patients talking about the best way to make friends in hospital:

It's easy to make friends, you can make friends here at Evelina because lots of different children come.

Downstairs at the school, I meet some friends there.

And this is how you make friends. You go into a play area or maybe go to see who's around and say, 'Hi, what's your name?' and start to play with them.

Every week when I come, lots of different children, I can see lots of different children, and then we start becoming friends when we play together.

You have to make sure that they want to play games with you. The second tip is you want to make them have the funnest time, and then the third tip is to say, 'Do you want to be friends?'

Making new friends

There are lots of places to meet other children at Evelina London Children's Hospital:

on the ward: you will be with other children like you. There are play areas on the ward with games and toys to share
while you wait for your appointment: you could meet someone playing on the slide or with the toys and games
at the café or juice bar
at the Evelina Scouts and Guides
at the hospital school.

You might meet someone with the same condition as you. You could talk to each other about how you feel or just play together.

The nurse on your ward can tell you about any groups of children who meet to:

do fun activities together
talk about how they feel.

Friends from home

When you are at Evelina London, it’s really easy to stay in touch with friends from home.

They can come to visit you during your stay. Friends and family can visit until 8pm every evening.

You can bring a smart phone, tablet or laptop to hospital to help you keep in touch. Don’t forget to bring a charger too.

There’s free WiFi at Evelina London. Ask a nurse to help you get online.

Please tell a nurse on your ward if you bring a phone, tablet or laptop with you. They can help you to keep it in a safe place.

Guides and Scouts

Our Guide and Scout group meets:

every Monday
6.15pm to 7.15pm
Level 3 – Beach, in the atrium.

Everyone is welcome, aged 6 to 18. You can even bring your brother or sister along too.

It doesn’t matter if you haven’t been to Guides or Scouts before. You can come along and join in the fun.

At each meeting, we will do lots of great activities. You will earn a badge for each meeting you come to.

If you have fun and want to carry on when you leave hospital, we can put you in touch with your local Guide or Scout group.