Bradford Hospitals’ Charity is one of 400 charities and community groups across the UK to receive volunteer support from Marks & Spencer as part of a nationwide week of action.
Staff from the M&S Ilkley store will spend the day at Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI) on Wednesday, June 5 as part of Volunteers’ Week (1-7 June).
The volunteers will visit Radiology, where they will see the work which has already started on making scanning services more child-friendly, thanks to the money raised through the charity’s Rays a Smile appeal. The charity has raised around £55,000 of its £250,000 target, allowing work to start on creating a children’s waiting area and snuggle room.
The M&S volunteers will then hold a bucket collection in the main atrium of the hospital to help boost funds for Rays a Smile, before they head to the Children and Young People’s Unit to work on pebble art and biscuit decorating with young patients and hospital play staff.
MEDIA ARE INVITED TO ATTEND THE M&S STORE AT BRADFORD ROYAL INFIRMARY AT NOON ON WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5 FOR PHOTOS OF THE VOLUNTEERS SHAKING BUCKETS.
Hayley Collis, Head of Fundraising for Bradford Hospitals’ Charity, said: “This is a lovely opportunity for us to showcase the work we have already done to improve the experience of young patients in hospital, and also publicise the opportunities we have with our charity for volunteering.
“We have fantastic volunteer roles available with Bradford Hospitals’ Charity, which involve everything from supporting fundraising events to admin support.
“You could be running a tombola stall for us in the hospital, taking donations from shoppers in Bradford’s Broadway shopping centre or cheering on our fundraisers as they jump out of an airplane. We are always on the lookout for people with good organisational and admin skills too, as we are a rapidly growing charity.”
The Ilkley store is one of more than 6,000 stores across the UK which will be taking part in Volunteers Week, committing more than 40,000 hours to charity projects.
Bradford Hospitals’ Charity and M&S were connected to work together by Neighbourly – the social network for social good.
Find out more about M&S’s Volunteer Week at https://www.neighbourly.com/VolunteerWeek
Follow the conversation online by searching the hashtag #MarksInAction and #RaysASmile.
To find out more about Bradford Hospitals’ Charity and the volunteer roles available visit https://bradfordhospitalscharity.org/volunteer/our-volunteer-roles/. Alternatively, contact Hayley Collis or Elaine Drake on 01274 274809 or email charity@bthft.nhs.uk
ENDS
Note to Editors:
Bradford Hospitals’ Charity is one of more than 250 NHS charities based around the UK. It supports the strategic direction of Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust by funding projects which go over and above what he NHS provides.
Did you know that, together, all NHS charities give £1million every single day to the NHS!
In 2017, a new £28million wing opened at Bradford Royal Infirmary, which was part of a £75m investment to improve patient care across our hospitals. It provides world-class facilities for the elderly, children and a brand new intensive care unit. Bradford Hospitals’ Charity provided £260,000 to enable the Trust to create family friendly environments, state-of-the-art equipment and innovative distraction toys and games for young people.
With the support of Bradford Hospitals’ Charity, BTHFT was also able to provide more cots, including intensive care and high dependency cots, new family accommodation, a revamped counselling suite and a dedicated room for mothers to express milk for pre-term babies when the new neonatal unit opened in 2015.
For further media information, please contact Kelly Thornham, Communications Officer, at communications@bthft.nhs.uk or call 01274 382265
Twitter: @BTHFTCharity Facebook: bradfordhospitalscharity Instagram:bradfordhospitalscharity LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/bradfordhospitalscharity
Note to Editors:
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust:
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is responsible for providing hospital services for the people of Bradford and communities across Yorkshire. We serve a core population of around 500,000 and provide specialist services for 1.1 million people.
Our 5,500 staff work over several sites, including Bradford Royal Infirmary, which provides the majority of inpatient services, and St Luke’s Hospital, which predominantly provides outpatient and rehabilitation services. We also manage local community hospitals at Westwood Park, Westbourne Green, and Eccleshill.
In early 2017, a new £28 million wing opened at Bradford Royal Infirmary, part of a £75m investment to improve patient care across our hospitals over a five-year period. It provides world-class facilities for elderly care, children’s services, a state-of-the-art intensive care unit with increased single-room provision and a retail concourse.
The new wing is a continuation of our work to improve patient experience after our new £2 million neonatal unit officially opened in January 2015. Our maternity services were recently shortlisted for the Royal College of Midwives’ (RCM) Midwifery Service of the Year Award, recognising excellence and innovation in the provision of maternity care.
In 2017, we also completed a £2m refurbishment of our Emergency Department (ED) as part of an ambitious vision to create a more efficient acute medicine service for the people of Bradford. It has been designed to provide a slicker and more efficient service, with faster senior clinical involvement at an early stage in the patient pathway.
As a teaching hospital, we are at the forefront of education and development in healthcare, and have an excellent reputation for research performance. We are one of the leading centres in conducting applied research in the country, particularly in quality and safety, elderly care and rehabilitation.
The Trust is home to the Bradford Institute for Health Research (BIHR) where researchers have led the development, validation and implementation of the award-winning Bradford Electronic Frailty Index (eFI) which helps calculate an elderly person’s risk of disability, impairment, falls and complications of chronic diseases, as well as their diminishing independence and capability. This is now being used by 98% of all GPs across the country.
Our award-winning Ophthalmology department is home to numerous worldwide clinical trials taking the lead in eye care research and we are one of only three sites in the United Kingdom to be enlisted in the Perioperative Enhanced Recovery Hip Fracture Care of Patients with Dementia (PERFECTED) study, which will investigate how the NHS can introduce better standards of care to improve outcomes for people with dementia.
Follow us on Twitter: @BTHFT
For more information please visit www.bradfordhospitals.nhs.uk