A Worthwhile Charity

For nearly 150 years Birmingham Children's Hospital has been pushing forward the frontiers of paediatric medicine - saving lives and treating sick children.

Over 140,000 children from Birmingham, the West Midlands and further afield are treated at Birmingham Children's Hospital every year, in over 50 wards and specialist departments. Over 2000 children are treated from the Worcestershire and Wolverhampton areas.

We can all be immensely proud of our Children's Hospital which has a national and international reputation. Amongst countless other achievements, Birmingham Children's Hospital can boast many firsts including:

• Britain's first paediatric triple transplant liver, pancreas and small bowel
• Successfully fitting the smallest ever pacemaker in a three week old baby
• Britain's first successful separation of conjoined twins joined at the base of the spine
• Specialist Departments include:
• One of only two designated centres in the UK for the treatment of Retinoblastoma (cancer of the eye)
• Provision of a national service, in partnership with Great Ormond Street, for the care of children with Epidermylosis Bullosa (Butterfly Children)
• One of only three units in the UK dedicated to the care of children with Sickle Cell Anaemia
• BCH has one of the largest Paediatric Oncology units in the UK, treating all forms of childhood cancer
• An outstanding Training and Research Centre (the link between gluten and celiac disease was an early discovery of the Children's

Hospital). Because of its excellence, Birmingham Children's Hospital has been chosen as the site for a prestigious, specialist Paediatric Burn Centre and from next year around half of the child population of England and Wales will be served by this Centre in Birmingham. It is a real tribute to the skill, dedication and commitment of the specialist Burns Team at Birmingham Children's Hospital.

There is a desperate need for this service, as other nearby hospitals have neither the resources nor the specialised staff to deal with children with severe burns. There have been cases of local children who have had to travel long distances to other cities to be treated.

In the new Burn Centre, we will be able to provide a total care package in one space, from admission to recovery and rehabilitation; no longer will children with burn injuries have to be shunted back and forth throughout the hospital for their treatment.

Thanks to advances in technology, and the expertise of our medical teams, children who only two years ago would have died as a result of their burn injuries, have now survived. In 2005, in two separate incidents, two youngsters suffered 86 per cent and 93 per cent burns. Now they are both outpatients, and stand as the longest surviving, most severely burned children in UK medical history. Moreover, one of them, albeit disfigured, is now studying for his GCSEs and miraculously riding a bicycle!

The new Centre will receive young patients with severe burns and complex injuries from a wide geographical area, as well as children with all levels of burn injury from Birmingham and the region. The new development will also house our Neonatal Surgery ward and an Education Centre to train all future doctors and nurses throughout the West Midlands.

This development will cost circa £19 million, most of which is being provided by the Strategic Health Authority for the basic clinical requirements. However, we need to find some £3 million ourselves in order to create the best possible healing environment. So far we have raised close to £2 million.

The Campaign is well underway,and we are extremely grateful to have been adopted by Vikram Solanki and to be the beneficiary of a proportion of the charitable income raised through his Benefit Year.

Peter Tomlinson
Birmingham Children's Hospital