Birmingham Children’s Hospital – Tuesday 16th July 2024

This week I had the great pleasure as High Sheriff of the West Midlands of visiting Birmingham Children’s Hospital along with Reverend Becky Stephens, my Chaplain. We were kindly hosted by Mark Brider and Cornelia Wright of Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity and Daljit Athwal, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital NHS Trust. We had a tour of this wonderful hospital and saw first hand the impact they are making. As a young man I spent a long period of time in hospital following a road traffic accident and am externally grateful for the work that the medical profession, and all their volunteers, did to help me to recover.

We visited the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), which is the largest and busiest single centre PICU in the UK, and met the very dedicated staff and a wonderful family who had been at the unit for seven months as their young child is treated. We also had the opportunity to pass by the very poignant Magnolia House and then over to Waterfall House where I had previously made a donation towards Roald Dahl artwork.

During our tour we also heard about the charity’s new £3m It Starts Here Appeal, which will completely transform the hospital’s main entrance to help reduce fear and anxiety for brave patients as they arrive for appointments. Please find attached a link to contribute to Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity’s It Starts Here Appeal. https://bch.org.uk/it-starts-here

A big thank you to all the wonderful staff who work at Birmingham Children’s Hospital and the Charity headed up by Mark Brider. I was inspired by their dedication to the betterment of patients and pursuit of further innovations in their world class hospital. They should rightly be proud of the impact they are making.