Family moves to be with son, 2, who has never been home from hospital

For any parents with a sick child the impact can be immense, but for little Nathan Browne and his family their lives have been turned upside down. The brave two-year-old was born with several heart conditions and since his birth at St Mary's in Manchester in October 2019, they have never returned home.

In order to be close to their son, mum Joy, dad Patrick and their 11-year-old twins Elienai and Eliedad, left behind their Bolton home to move into the Ronald McDonald House Manchester. The charity-funded house is just a stone's throw from the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital and is the only place Nathan is allowed to go when he gets a break from the ward.

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It's there he can spend time with his family and play with his brother and sister, with his parents safe in the knowledge that any medical support is close by. He gets to spend up to 10 hours a day in the Manchester House, precious time he would not get with his family had they remained at their home in Farnworth. For now, that's being rented out, with Patrick driving the twins back each day to attend their final year at Cherry Tree Primary.

Joy, whose scans hadn't detected any heart problems during pregnancy, described how 'traumatic' it was for them all.

"We never knew what it was to be in the intensive care unit or to have a patient there," she said. "I saw the ward filled with so many children, and we just burst into tears. We were told that he wasn't going to make it and all we could do was just cry.

"It was hectic and incredibly traumatic. But we got told at the hospital that there was an accommodation called Ronald McDonald House Charities UK, with a house based in