Bradford Hospitals’ Charity has launched its brand new fundraising appeal to make radiology services in the city more child-friendly.
The appeal – Rays a Smile – was officially unveiled at Horsfall Stadium at a celebrity football match which featured stars from TV, radio and the professional game. The celebrity XI played Team Bradford Hospitals’ Charity, made up of staff from across Bradford Teaching Hospitals.
The launch event netted £2,500, which will be put towards the £250,000 needed to make radiology facilities more child-friendly at Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke’s Hospital.
Famous players included Emmerdale actor James Hooton (Sam Dingle), actor Jamie Lee-Hill (Far from the Madding Crowd), Mrs Browns’ Boys’ Rory Brown, Tim Bradbury of Tiny Tim Adventures, singer and actor Ash Stevenson, Big Brother’s Ellie Young, Sky Sports presenter Tom White, Pulse 2 football commentator Jason Thornton, and ex professional footballers David Norris, Lee Duxbury, Craig Armstrong and Darren Williams.
The celebs squared up to an enthusiastic team of Bradford Teaching Hospitals staff, including Chief Nurse Karen Dawber, who played in goal, Finance Director Matthew Horner, consultant histopathologist and team captain Faisal Ali as well as radiographers, nurses, doctors, pharmacy technicians, healthcare assistants, and admin and technical staff.
The event was organised by Supporting Charities FC in support of Bradford Hospitals’ Charity and hosted by Bradford Park Avenue in the Community.
Fantastic performance
While the hospital team didn’t win (they played two matches ending 14-4 and 6-0) they put on a fantastic performance.
Hayley Collis, head of fundraising for Bradford Hospitals’ Charity, said: “Thank you so much to everyone who came along to the launch of our appeal. It was a fantastic community event, with more than 300 people through the turnstiles enjoying the football and entertainment.
“The NHS really does have the best staff and supporters so we’re looking forward to lots more fundraising fun as we head towards our goal of £250,000!”
Hayley also thanked SpaceKraft, Irwin Mitchell and Nuffield Health for sponsoring the charity’s team kit.
Rays a Smile aims to raise £250,000 to:
- Create designated children’s waiting areas at Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke’s Hospital which are bright, warm and welcoming and kitted out with distraction toys
- Revamp some rooms used for X-ray, ultrasound, CT and MRI scans with colourful décor to distract children
- Create a ‘snuggle room’ for parents to soothe babies to sleep before scans, to avoid the need for a general anaesthetic
- Buy a specialist ‘Relax and View’ machine, which plays films and videos while young patients have an MRI scan
- Buy sound systems to play music for children while they are scanned.
Almost all patients treated in hospital, either as an inpatient or outpatient, are referred for imaging. Around 55 children are imaged every single day in Bradford’s hospitals.
Most radiology staff work from the basement in Bradford Royal Infirmary, which has little natural light, using x-ray, ultrasound, CT and MRI to diagnose patients. A smaller unit of ultrasound and x-ray is based at St Luke’s Hospital’s D Block.
It is believed that a brighter, more child-friendly environment will benefit all patients, including some adults who find imaging stressful. It will also speed up scan times because people will be less anxious and avoid sedation, thus providing better quality images.
Dr LeeAnne Elliott, paediatric radiologist, said: “We now have a brand new, bright and colourful children’s ward, which has dramatically improved the experiences for our young patients coming in for treatment. But when they are called for imaging, they are often very daunted to enter radiology, where they are met by large machines which are loud and, certainly for children, quite scary.
“Anxiety can cause delays in scanning, which can potentially delay treatment. We want to put children and their families at ease, ensuring they get a diagnosis and treatment as soon as possible. But we need your help to do this.”
Fundraising appeal
Hayley Collis, head of fundraising for Bradford Hospitals’ Charity, said: “It is a long time since we launched a fundraising appeal, so we’re excited to unveil our plans to transform our radiology services for children.
“Most people will have experience of having an x-ray, which is daunting enough. In fact most adults are very anxious when they have an MRI or CT scan. Imagine if it were your child who needed one of these scans and how scary it would be. We want to provide the best for Bradford’s children when they come into hospital, but we need to fundraise to do this.
“The people of Bradford love their NHS and want to support it, so we’re confident residents and businesses waill back us to reach our quarter of a million pound target.”
To find out more about the Rays a Smile appeal, to view the appeal video and find out how you can donate and fundraise, visit www.bradfordhospitalscharity.org.uk/rays-a-smile
Featured in the appeal video is 10-year-old MollyMae Windle, who is backing the appeal. MolllyMae has Cystic Fibrosis and, as a patient at Bradford Royal Infirmary, has to have lots of scans.
If you would like to donate or raise money for Rays a Smile, please contact Hayley or Elaine 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
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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.
The Trust has its own Bradford Hospitals Charity: https://bradfordhospitalscharity.org/
Follow us on Twitter: @BTHFT
For more information please visit www.bradfordhospitals.nhs.uk