June 19th, 2019

One of the ways Barts Guild supports the hospital is by running an active grants service and it’s fair to say that the grants sub-committee have been keeping busy in recent months! Grant requests come in from a variety of sources, including via the website or directly from members of staff via email; occasionally, Barts Guild joins forces with other Barts related charities to support a joint request.

An overview of some recent grants is provided below. These are by no means an exhaustive list of recent grants, but they give a flavour of the types of grants supported:

 

‘Noise Reducing Ears’ for the critical care units.

The critical care environment is well-known to be a hectic and noisy place; with lots of staff, machines and unwell patients. However, it’s also well-known that having a quiet ward is beneficial for patients, aiding better sleep, reduction in delirium post-op, reduced length of stay in hospital and improved patient satisfaction. As such, Barts Guild supported the purchase of a number of sound monitors, shaped as ears, that display visual warning cues when sound levels are too high. These are pictured below:

 

Female Medical Pioneers at Barts Health – funding for refreshments and venue hire.

In this shared grant request with The Rahere Association and the Trust’s Equality and Diversity team, Barts Guild supported the above event, aiming to highlight and celebrate some of Barts own female medical pioneers. Talks included those by Barts Health CEA Olwyn Williams, Ms Swee Ang and Prof. Dame Parveen Kumar. Barts Guild have also recently supported the refreshments for a number of other events, including a quality improvement workshop and ice-creams in the square for International Nurses’ Day!

 

Support for family holiday for patient with advanced cancer

Following a grant request from one of the palliative social care team, Barts Guild teamed up with the Rahere Association to fund a short seaside holiday for a patient with advanced cancer and her family. The family could not afford such a break themselves and the trip involved staying at a specialist hotel, suited to caring for those with medical needs. The trip was greatly appreciated by the family. The patient reports that she found it very helpful to meet other people living with cancer and to have the opportunity to talk to them. She enjoyed sitting in the beach hut and watching the children experience being on a beach for the first time. Their father said that he enjoyed a change of routine and having a break from caring.

 

Support for Conference attendance, showcasing work undertaken at Barts Hospital

Barts Guild have supported a number of staff to attend medical conferences to showcase their work undertaken at Barts. One of these was Rachel Young, a physiotherapist within the respiratory team. She attended the European Cystic Fibrosis Conference in Liverpool and presented her work, pictured below. She passes on her thanks to Barts Guild, without which, her attendance wouldn’t have been possible.

 

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There are a number of other grants in progress and further updates will outline the final outcomes of these in due course.

If you’re a member of staff with a grant in mind, please complete a grant request form by clicking here.

If you’re a patient or visitor of Barts with an idea, please let us know via email (contact@bartsguild.org.uk); we’ll do our best to investigate the possibility of us supporting it!

If you’re a student of Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, there are special grants funded by the Wainwright family in memory of Dr Cartledge, a former ophthalmologist at Barts. An example can be read about by clicking here. Further information about these grants can be found via the medical school’s student finance office.