The Local Charity Working Behind the Scenes to Support Leeds Teaching Hospitals & the Amazing Things They’ve Achieved

This is even better than clapping for the NHS, this is your chance to make a real difference to patients, families and staff…

Leeds Teaching Hospitals is one of the biggest trusts in the country. Every year, they treat 1.7 million patients, including more than 230,000 emergencies. Chances are, you’ve either experienced their care first hand or know someone who has, but what you may not realise is that they have a partner charity working behind the scenes to make that experience better. Leeds Hospitals Charity provides an additional £6 million a year to help Leeds Teaching Hospitals give patients the best possible care.

How they’re making healthcare better for patients, families and staff

Leeds Hospitals Charity raises money to support Leeds Teaching Hospitals. But why? You ask. The NHS is funded by the government, surely they don’t need any additional funds? The answer is simple – Leeds Hospitals Charity helps pay for the little luxuries and big investments the NHS can’t afford. In fact, they support nearly 400 projects a year, from funding innovative research and buying state-of-the-art equipment to supplying care packs for patients with learning disabilities and activities for patients with dementia.

Small changes can make a big difference. Take maternity patients for example. When you go into labour, the NHS will take great care of you. But their focus is understandably on keeping mum and baby healthy, so Leeds Hospitals Charity steps in to help make the experience as easy and stress free as possible. How? By providing chairs to support active births and for birth partners to sit or sleep in while you’re there, creating a more relaxed environment for one of the biggest moments of your lives.

It’s not just the patients that benefit either. Leeds Hospitals Charity works to improve the experience for everyone, including families and staff. It could be something as simple as refurbishing rooms, so bereaved patients have a safe place to grieve, or providing funding to a local ‘Home From Home’, so parents have somewhere to stay while their children are in hospital, but you can rest assured that all your donations are put to good use. They could help to improve staff rooms and facilities to make those long shifts a little easier.

What they’ve achieved with the help and generosity of people like you

Over the last 12 months, Leeds Hospitals Charity has touched the lives of millions of people, although even if you were one of them, you’d never know it. They’re an invisible force, making healthcare better for everyone – and while we can’t tell you about all their projects, there are simply too many of them, we can give you a little taste of what they’ve achieved. Like the fact that they funded research to make surgery safer for bowel cancer patients and bought equipment that accurately matches donor organs with transplant patients.

This year, Leeds Hospitals Charity contributed £111,000 towards a PrimusRS BTE. This cutting edge technology guides the entire rehabilitation process, from evaluating baseline measurements to creating a personalised training programme, and it’s already making a big difference to patients like Cor Hutton. In 2013, she had her hands and feet amputated after a life-changing bout of pneumonia and sepsis, now she’s using the machine to aid her post-transplant recovery through visualisation techniques and strength work.

They also helped fund a play specialist to support Leeds Children’s Hospital’s research into how virtual reality technology can be used to reduce the stress and anxiety of young patients. VR headsets loaded with games were used to distract kids while treatments were carried out – in one case, they were even able to carry out a procedure under local anaesthetic instead of general. And it’s not just big projects that make a difference. Small things, like buying jigsaw puzzles and playing cards for patients with dementia, have a major impact too.

Cover image: Play specialist Neoma assists patient Emily with some crafting during her dialysis treatment at Leeds Children’s Hospital.