A charity dedicated to providing life-changing or life-saving special care to babies is hoping to raise £250,000 within the next year.

The Oliver Fisher Special Care Baby Trust (OFSCBT) will be hosting a number of fundraisers over the next 12 months in a bid to raise its “most ambitious” target to date and help improve the life of more than 1,300 sickly tots every year.

Based at Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham, the charity primarily helps youngsters and parents who need it in the Swale and Medway area.

In recent years, it has also helped those in Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

Before it moved to its current site in Windmill Road back in 1999, the charity had been based at All Saints’ Hospital in Chatham since 1985.

The charity is hoping to raise a quarter of a million pounds as part of its IC-e Cream Campaign which will help the upcoming refurbishment of the intensive care ward on the Oliver Fisher Neonatal Unit.

As part of the planned improvements, a complete upgrade of the medical gantry system and associated equipment – which run the oxygen and electricity for each of the 12 incubator spaces on the ward – would be carried out.

Any donation made to the OFSCBT after April 1 will go towards the fundraising total.

Hannah Grout, who is the trust’s PR manager, spent a few weeks on the ward after her daughter Maggie was born at 28 weeks

Speaking about the need to upgrade equipment on the intensive care unit, she said: “That's been there for 25 years since it was all purpose built in 1999 and medical tech has moved on; things get smaller and we have more monitors, for example.

"There are all the different bits and pieces you can have now, including mums using the space to breast feed by the side of their incubators and having electronic breast pumps to help them.

“It's refreshing that, and making sure we have outlets available and have that high-end level of availability and the space which parents, families and medical staff need to do their job."

The first money-raising event will be a Bridgerton-themed gala at the Corn Exchange in Rochester on May 17.

Alongside a three-course meal at the regency-styled venue there will be a variety of fundraising activities including a live auction and raffle.

Items available include meal vouchers, original art work and a place on the charity running team in the London Marathon next year.

Tickets cost £75 and can be purchased here up until April 24.

On June 1, just two weeks later, an Oliver Fisher Race Day will be held at Milton Creek Country Park in Sittingbourne.

It will start with a 5k and 10k in the morning before a family 2k fun run later in the day which is open to everyone of all ages.

The event was held last year and welcomed its youngest participant to date, with a six-month old tagging along for the jog on her dad’s chest.

To claim your race number, click here.