Leeds Cares corner

Leeds Hospitals Charity - news and donations

Leeds Hospitals Charity shop…opening soon!

This year, we’re opening our first community based charity shop in Crossgates, Leeds! Please watch this space for updates on when our charity shop will be open and accepting donations. If you’re interested in volunteering in the charity shop, you can find out more and apply on our website: https://volunteers.leedshospitalscharity. org.uk/opportunities

Leeds Parks Challenge

In partnership with Great North, Leeds Hospitals Charity are excited to share our first event of 2021 – the Leeds Parks Challenge! The challenge, starting on 1 February, is to complete ten 5k (runs, walks or hops!) around your local park or even up and down your stairs and help raise funds for your local NHS hospitals. You have 12 weeks to complete the challenge, whether you do one run a week or decide to run a marathon a week!

In 2020 our supporters helped fund…

Thanks to our amazing supporters, we helped provide an additional £6 million worth of projects to support staff, patients and families across Leeds Teaching Hospitals. From a specialist incubator on the Neonatal Unit to help premature babies like Archie, to a clinical psychology programme for frontline NHS staff and a brand-new surgical laser to treat lung cancer patients like John.

Archie’s Story

Thanks to the amazing generosity and kind donations of the local people of Leeds, we’ve been able to buy a new state-of-the-art ‘baby Leo’ incubator for the Neonatal Unit at Leeds Children’s Hospital. New parents, Chris and Emma were in hospital with their one-month old baby Archie when we launched our Urgent Equipment Appeal. Archie spent two weeks in an incubator on the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and grew from strength to strength until the family were able to return home together in time for Christmas.

Chris said: “We’re absolutely over the moon that the appeal has raised enough to buy a new incubator for the ward! We see the nurses, doctors and surgeons as Archie’s first family, Emma and I will forever be in their debt. Only really now that Archie has grown to a ‘normal birth weight’, we realise just how vulnerable he was when he was born at 2lb 12oz, 10 weeks prematurely back in August. We are so lucky to have the unbelievably skilful and knowledgeable NHS staff looking after our little boy.”

Clinical Psychology Programme

We’ve invested £900,000 for a clinical psychology programme for frontline health workers during the second wave to support staff, including those who are treating patients with Covid-19.

Jenny Lewis, Director of HR and Organisational Development, said “Over the last nine months we’ve had the most amazing support from people across Leeds who have put on public displays of appreciation for our NHS staff, donated to our causes, and raised money.” You can read our latest news and funding projects here https://www. leedshospitalscharity.org.uk/Pages/News/

John’s Story

Thanks to donations to our Limax Laser appeal, a brand-new £138,000 surgical laser is now in use at Leeds Cancer Centre. The laser is a small but extremely precise hand-held device that is used by surgeons on patients with primary and metastatic cancer in the lung.

John, a lung-cancer patient from Grimsby, had surgery using the laser in 2016. He said, “I really don’t think I’d be here now if it wasn’t for the team at Leeds using the laser. It gave my family hope for the future and meant I was able to have more surgeries and further treatment if needed.”