UCLH CHARITY REVIEW
summer 2009
Ever wondered
what we do
with your
donations?
About 80 per cent of the people and
organisations that support us ask for their
donation to go to specific causes, with the
rest going to the Trustees’ general funds.
To make sure that any donations are used
where they are most needed, we let front-line
staff in the wards and departments decide
what to buy. Here are some of the projects
our supporters have helped us to fund.
• British Land, which owns the Regent’s Place
development on the Euston Road, teamed
up with Hachette Livre to donate £5,000 to
the UCLH Children’s Ward. The money was
used to buy extra equipment for the sensory
room, a calm, medical-free oasis equipped
with lights, music and games, where children
up to the age of 12 can take time out from the ward. As the room
is too small to wheel a bed into, the donation will provide mobile
equipment to take to the ward.
• Researcher Susie Pearce went on a training course, financed by the
Adolescent Cancer Unit fund, to explore ways to engage young people
in research projects. “It is important for young patients to be active
participants in research and the development of services” she says.
• Kevin Sullivan, a paediatric radiotherapy research radiographer, has
his salary partly funded by the Rays of Hope for Children with Cancer
charitable fund. His work, which focuses on innovative radiation
treatments for the childhood cancer neuroblastoma, means that
children come from across Britain and abroad to UCLH for treatment.
The fund’s supporters include Greggs the bakers, who organise fun
runs to finance Kevin’s work.
• P rofessor Derek Yellon, who works in cardiac research funded with the
help of the UCLH Charity, is providing a placement over the summer
for graduate student Matthew Roche. “It’s hugely interesting to spend
time in a working lab, dealing with actual research” says Matthew,
whose dissertation was on one of Professor Yellon’s key projects,
looking at how to enhance the heart’s ability to heal itself after a
heart attack.
• U
CLH Charity is very proud of the work that its fundraisers
do – see pages 3 and 4 to see the many different ways that people
get involved. And please contact Rachel Wilcox if you’d like to get
involved in the next Greggs’ fun run.
Above:
Kevin Sullivan
Above:
Matthew Roche
MEET OUR FUNDRAISING HEROES AND
FIND OUT WHAT THEY’RE UP TO!
Chief Executive’s letter
Coping with the credit crunch
Philip Brading
Chief Executive
The financial crisis continues to affect us all, whether we’re
individuals, companies or charities. UCLH Charity has been
fortunate in the past, as we have been able to use our
investment income to support larger projects. But we can’t
rely on this for the future. While we haven’t been forced
to cut back on any of our existing commitments, we need
to look hard at how we can generate additional income for
new projects.
You can find out more about this exciting project on this page.
One example of this is HeartWorks, where an idea we
supported with a grant is now being sold to other teaching
hospitals.
We are deeply grateful to everyone who has donated to our
funds and to the UCLH staff who identify what is needed in
their areas.
Instead of looking back at the supporters who have completed their fundraising tasks events,
this issue looks at supporters who are still – at the point of writing – preparing for their challenges.
This issue also tells you how our supporters are raising much
needed funds and how the donations that come in for specific
wards or consultants continue to benefit our patients.
HeartWorks project leads
to new company generating
charitable income!
When three clinicians at the
Heart Hospital – Sue Wright,
Bruce Martin and Andrew Smith
– had an idea for a computer
teaching aid to help them train
junior anaesthetists, they didn’t
know where to get the IT skills or
money they needed.
A chance conversation with friends led them
to Glassworks, an award-winning computer
graphics company, who are most famous for
the Citroen TV advert where a car morphs into
a break-dancing robot.
And they were successful in winning a grant
from UCLH Charity for their HeartWorks
programme, which helps junior staff relate
two-dimensional ultrasound images to the
three-dimensional anatomy of the heart.
Painstaking research and input from clinicians
and cardiac specialists helped Glassworks to
produce an anatomical model that simulates a
beating heart.
A mannequin was later added with a transoesophageal probe, so that clinicians could
learn how to manipulate the probe to achieve
the images they needed, with the 2-D
ultrasound image set alongside a cut-through
virtual 3-D heart.
It also became clear that if UCLH Charity was
willing to pay for this teaching aid, others
hospitals might be interested.
So a new company, Inventive Medical Limited
(IML), was established and in its first year it
sold five systems to other teaching hospitals.
These include Harvard in the US, where
the cardiology professor declared himself
“humbled” by the achievement of something
he had been working on for years.
The profits from the sales will be ploughed
back into UCLH Charity and IML is looking out
for the next great idea from our clinicians!
Please contact us today
If you’d like to find out more about how your donation
would help UCLH Charity please contact Rachel Wilcox on:
T: 020 7380 9743
email: [email protected]
For more information visit:
www.uclhcharity.org.uk
UCLH Charity, 5th Floor East,
250 Euston Road, London NW1 2PG.
Charity Registration Number 229771
Meet
our new
Trustees
Professor Peter Ell
FMedSci Dr HC is a
Senior Investigator
with the National
Institute for Health
Research, who has
authored more than
630 peer-reviewed
full papers and 12
textbooks. His many
international awards
include the British Nuclear Medicine Society
First Medal for Outstanding Contributions to
Clinical Science in Nuclear Medicine (2009)
and the Georg de Hevesy Pioneer Award
Society of Nuclear Medicine USA (2008).
Mrs Sooty Asquith
is Chairman of the
Governors of a large
special needs’ school
in Wandsworth
and has 20 years’
experience of NHS
hospitals, as she
has a handicapped
son. She was a
publishing editor with
HarperCollins for 20 years and is a fundraiser
for The Challenging Behaviour Foundation.
Olympic swimmer inspires
fund-raising challenge
When Olympic swimmer
Paul Marshall, who
won a medal for
Britain at the 1980
Moscow Olympics, was
diagnosed with bowel
cancer in May 2007, it
hit his best friend Bruce
Milroy hard. He felt he could make a difference by
raising money and awareness of the treatment that
had helped prolong Paul’s life – Radio Frequency
Ablation (RFA).
Sadly Paul died in May and this July, Bruce and two friends will cycle
from Land’s End to John O’ Groats, aiming to cover a challenging
100 miles a day for UCLH’s RF Albation fund. Bruce says: “Paul’s the
inspiration. When it gets to day four, five, or six and I’m exhausted and
sore, I’ll just think of what he went through.”
RFA uses heat to kill certain types of tumour and is less invasive than
radiotherapy or chemotherapy. The fund provides bursaries to train
doctors in the technique, so that this potentially life-saving therapy
can be made available more widely.
It costs up to £20,000 to provide training for a doctor, and the team
are already over halfway to their £10,000 target.
BIRTHDAY BOY DAN
RUNS MARATHON FOR
ADOLESCENT UROLOGY
When consultant Dan Wood realised the New York marathon fell
on his 40th birthday he decided to take part to raise money for the
adolescent urology department at UCLH where he works.
“The department is unique in the UK as it is able to take on a wide
range of patients with complex congenital urological issues and see
them through adolescence into adulthood” he says.
“The long term aims include improving the understanding of
long term outcomes in patients as well as striving to improve our
day-to-day care with better equipment and expansion of the team.”
www.justgiving.com/ethosfundraising
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Serena Bracken was inspired to raise money for UCLH after the
treatment and support her mother received there.
“A team of us – including my dad and Nancy
Huntley from the hospital – are planning to
run a half marathon in September” she says.
“We aim to raise as much money as possible
to thank everyone for their hard work and to
support the important testing and research
work done at the hospital.”
Serena’s mother went to her local hospital in
Sidcup after pinhead bruises kept appearing
on her hands, arms and face. She also had a
headache, nose bleeds and looked very pale.
She was transferred to UCLH where she was
told she had a very rare blood disease called
TTP, which meant that her blood was forming
platelets that were clotting internally, causing
the bruises.
“My mother was in UCLH for almost four
weeks, undergoing plasma exchanges twice a
day to clean her blood and receiving rituximab
as part of a trial to kill the antibody making
her blood form so many clots” says Serena.
“She got the most unbelievable treatment
and support, especially from her nurse Nancy
Huntley. In fact, staff there gave outstanding
care to the whole family. My mother is now
at home but still getting the most amazing
support and treatment as an outpatient.”
www.justgiving.com/serena-mariabracken
Fundraising news
continued...
Mothers and Daughters
Committee raises money
for brain cancer
The Mothers and Daughters Committee,
which now boasts more than 25 members,
has raised more than £1.2 million for cancer
research over the last 10 years.
They recently launched a very personal £150,000 appeal after their
founder and inspiration, Life President Celia Abrams, was diagnosed
with Glioblastoma. The money will be used to fund a project that aims
to improve the survival rates for people with this aggressive form of
brain cancer.
Fundraising initiatives include a dinner at Quaglino’s restaurant in London
later this year and the daughter of a committee member will be climbing
Kilimanjaro in October with a friend.
For more information and details of how to support the campaign
please visit www.mothersanddaughters.co.uk
www.justgiving.com/suzanneandsuzie
So how can you help?
The extra equipment, facilities and training that
UCLH Charity provides – both from our own funds
and working with our ward staff and consultants
– help to improve the experience for the patients
who use UCL Hospitals. We are very proud of what
we and our fundraisers achieve – but there is always
more that could be done.
UCLH
STAFF
GET ON
THEIR
BIKES
Rachel Wilcox, the Charity’s Public
Relations Manager, has cycled around
London for over five years now and is
totally convinced of the benefits.
So when UCLH Charity started looking
at the Government-backed Cycle to
Work scheme, she was keen to push
the idea forward.
The scheme means that staff can rent a bike, tax-free for a year,
saving over 24 per cent on the list price and paying in instalments
from their salary. At the end of the year, they pay a nominal sum to
buy the bike.
“We estimated we might need about £30,000 to provide bikes for
the scheme, but the Trustees said that we could have £40,000!”
says housing manager Sue Parker, the Trust’s lead on the scheme.
The trial period scheme has been such a success that the Trustees
have now decided that it should be a permanent fixture.
Here are just some of the ways
you can support us:
• T
ake part in a fundraising event. You don’t have to run a marathon,
skydive or cycle the length of the country. It may be something much
smaller, but taking part in an event for us raises awareness as well as
money – and it’s fun too!
• A
sk your employer to support us. Our local area covers high streets
and offices as well as homes, and partnerships. Local firms such as
British Land and Hachette Livre are already supporting us!
• Join the Friends of UCLH – for a small annual membership fee you
receive newsletters and an invitation to the Annual General Meeting.
If you want to become more involved, the Friends are always on the
lookout for potential Trustees, who decide which grants are awarded.
Email us at [email protected]
• Make a donation – regularly or as a one-off. Visit www.justgiving.com/
uclhc to find out how and see all the wonderful people who are taking
part in events for us. Don’t forget that you can ask for your donation
to benefit a specific project or ward – contact Rachel Wilcox on
020 7380 9743 or email [email protected] to find out more.
• If you have regular free time, why not volunteer? Whether you
welcome people to the hospital, visit patients on the wards or use
your own personal skills in some way, this provides a huge benefit
to patients and is a wonderful way to meet people. Find out more at
www.uclh.nhs.uk/job+seekers+volunteers/volunteering