Your say / healthcare
‘With your help, we can push the limits of what’s possible’
An old patient sings You’ll Never Walk Alone with the gent in the bed next to her. An 18-year-old with a lifelong heart condition watches a film in a quiet space away from the ward environment. A family are comforted by harp music as they sit by the bedside of a dying loved one.
These are just some of the moments made possible by Bristol & Weston Hospitals Charity. And over the next five years, we want to support our NHS to go further than ever before, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.
Our new five-year strategy will shape the future of healthcare, reflecting the ambition both of our charity and University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust.
is needed now More than ever
It would be naïve to say that there aren’t health problems in Bristol and Weston. There’s a 15-year life expectancy difference between the most and the least deprived areas of Bristol and one in four beds in hospital are filled with someone with dementia.
Standing beside our NHS, we’re planning to invest more than £6m over the next five years to benefit every patient who sets foot in our hospitals.
Our funding will focus on four key areas: older people, healing environments, innovation for change and healthcare for all.
We’ll be transforming older people’s experience in the hospitals, supporting rehabilitation, reducing distress, and improving engagement and wellbeing.
We’ll be funding projects that transform hospital spaces into calming environments that lower stress levels and improve wellbeing.
We’ll be funding innovating research and pioneering new treatments.
And we’ll enable access for people who experience barriers to treatment in our hospitals, ensuring everyone gets the best possible experience for their individual needs.
We all know how incredibly lucky we are to have the NHS in the UK. But the NHS can’t cover everything, which is where we come in.
Along with 250 other NHS charities, we bridge the gap, providing responses to the problems facing our hospitals, as well as opportunities for our NHS to push the boundaries of what’s possible.
This helps our hospitals in Bristol and Weston achieve far more than if they relied on NHS funds alone.
Our funding doesn’t pay for the standard elements of NHS care, like basic hospital beds or essential scanners. It funds things above and beyond what the NHS is able to provide and it helps our hospitals go the extra mile for you and your loved ones.
In short, charity funding doesn’t keep the NHS going; it simply makes it better.
photo: Bristol & Weston Hospitals Charity’s new five-year strategy hopes to shape the future of healthcare – photo: Bristol & Weston Hospitals Charity
Our hospitals are some of the best in the country and they are right here on your doorstep.
All those lives touched, all the healthcare issues treated, cures celebrated and innovation come to life. You can’t get anything else close to such a shared connection and much-needed public service for us all than the NHS in the places we call home.
Bristol is a city of trailblazers. You want to ensure our hospitals continue to be at the heart of our community. You want to shape the future of healthcare.
Chances are you know someone who has been treated or been a patient yourself in one of our hospitals.
And chances are we share the same passion: that every patient cared for by our hospitals has access to outstanding treatment in hospital environments that match the first-class care they receive from our NHS staff.
With your help, we can push the limits of what’s possible with the kinds of treatments and care our NHS staff can offer.
Going above and beyond to innovate and transform the experience patients receive at our hospitals is a rewarding and full-hearted movement to be part of.
By partnering with us, spreading the word, making a donation or being involved with the charity in another way, you can be part of the future of a healthcare.
This is an opinion piece by Sarah Pryer, director of fundraising & marketing at Bristol & Weston Hospitals Charity
Main photo: Bristol & Weston Hospitals Charity
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