Tag Archives: St George’s Hospital

Merry Christmas from the Christian Blandford Fund

December 28, 2020 by Peter · 1 Comment

This year's Father Christmas visit had to be virtual, with some somewhat unexpected results! We hope you enjoy this short video

It was all worth it when we received this lovely message the following day 

I'm just writing to say a heartfelt thank you.  My son has been in and out of St George's since the end of November and I've just picked him up for home leave for Christmas.  He was genuinely so thrilled to get his present from you this morning, and I was so touched as his Mum too.
 
Thank you so much and wishing you the merriest of Christmases.
 
 
We are very happy that this December we have been able to help out Poole Hospital who, as well as standard requests such as new beds for visiting parents, had an unusual request...
 
 
We would love ceramic mugs with lids for parents to use for hot drinks.   We struggle to buy them as they are not seen as essential but help greatly in reducing spill risks and the possibility  of scalds. These needs  100 plus mugs,  This would be top of our list. I am currently trying to source theses for a cost but am struggling to find anything. I have been able to find bamboo mugs but these can transfer heat easily and not all are dishwasher safe.
 
 
Fortunately we found just the thing...


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Santa 2019!

December 23, 2019 by Peter · Leave a comment
We had another wonderful day at St George’s handing out presents to some lovely children who are unlucky enough to be spending this time of year in hospital. It was particularly good to borrow the toy Tesla car for Jessica the elf to drive around the wards as we handed out presents. This is one of many cars donated by The Tesla Owners Group, in partnership with the Christian Blandford Fund to hospitals throughout the country. The staff at St George’s were all wonderful, a special thanks to Justine and her amazing team of play specialists who helped to organise the presents and accompanied us on the rounds, smiling and happy even when one of them had a toe run over by a Tesla driving elf (sorry Genevieve!). You can see a small selection of the photos below but the rest you can see here Click here for the full collection of photographs - free downloads for families and friends of patients Thank you to the talented photographer, Samantha Connoly Boles, who gave up her time and abilities for free to take these photos. You can see more of her work here. A special thank you to our trustees Darren Bowler and Amy Hancox who wrapped all the presents ready for Santa and to Susannah Boughtflower from Susannah's People for the fabulous beard.
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Father Christmas at St George’s Hospital (and Pembury Hospital) 2018

December 19, 2018 by Peter · Leave a comment

Yesterday we had another amazing day handing out presents at St George's. Christian and Jessica were fantastic elves helping me as Santa. The CBF trustees, Darren and Amy did a great job of wrapping presents and Neil and the St George's play specialists were a great help on the rounds. As usual it was a day filled with both laughter and tears. We are reminded how lucky we are that Christian has made such a great recovery and we are touched that he has become a beacon of hope for many families who are going through an incredibly difficult time.

Thank you to Matt Binnie who provided his photographic skills and equipment for free. You can see a selection above, the rest are here where friends and families of the patients can get downloads for free. Click on the cloud to download individual photos.

For the first time we also handed out presents in a different hospital, our local NHS hospital in Kent, Pembury. As my sledge is having an MOT we had to bring in some external Santa help! Here is a message from Claudia

"The Pembury Father Christmas  trip would not have been possible without the generosity of Granville School staff, parents and pupils who generously bought and wrapped all the gifts.  We would also like to thank Dionne Lessner who gave up her time to help Claudia on the day, Susannah Boughtflower (from Susannah’s People and The Kids Entertainers Network) who found us the most brilliant Father Christmas and who waived her fee & Damien Warren Smith who was a fantastic Father Christmas and who charmed not only the children but their parents and the Dr’s and nurses and play specialists."

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One of the more unusual items we have purchased…

September 5, 2018 by Peter · 1 Comment
One of the benefits the Christian Blandford Fund has is that its small size makes it very efficient so we can approve purchases that meet our criteria very quickly. The wonderful play specialists at St George's had an interesting request, a mini MRI scanner. Children being treated often find MRI machines scary and, as they need to lie very still, their fear can not only be distressing for them but can lead to unusable images. This is how Justine, the play specialist put it... This piece of equipment would absolutely prove so invaluable in preparing children/young people for scans and it would also help to reduce the number of patients who go for the scan under a G.A through fear of the actual machine. Showing patients exactly what it looks like (rather than a photograph), how it works and the noise it makes can definitely help to reduce fears, anxieties and misconceptions which will enable fewer G.A’s, risks and waiting times for the patient/parent carer. This is such exciting news for us and we have waited so long for a revolutionary idea like this! I wondered if I could make a wish for the MAGNETOM from you, I completely appreciate that it is very expensive, but the value it would bring to Play In Hospital at St George’s would be second to none, state of the art and help to bring us up to modern day healthcare standards! Which I strive to achieve at all times. We were able to approve the cost of it quickly and I am happy to say that it is now being used on the ward at St Georges. This is from a recent e-mail from Justine.

Please see pictures below of our lovely Olivia with my Play Specialist Hayley, learning all about having an MRI scan using the Mini-Magnetom MRI scanner model, which the wonderful Christian Blandford Charity purchased for us to help to teach our patients about having a blood test. As you can see, Olivia really benefitted from the experience and had a wonderful time learning about having an MRI scan. Olivia is a patient on Pinckney ward and has recently had her head henna’d which she absolutely loves. 

Lovely Olivia with toy MRI machine Lovely Olivia with toy MRI machine We are delighted that the scanner is being used and is making a difference and we wish Olivia all our love and best wishes.
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Some great news and important info for triathlon participants

February 8, 2018 by Peter · Leave a comment
We have been given the green light to go ahead with the refurbishment of the children’s wards at St George’s Hospital in Tooting. The work will start in March with Nicholls ward and The Pinckney Ward, where Christian spent a lot of time, will come next. We are very proud to say that the Christian Blandford Fund will be funding the majority of this work and have pledged £100,000 for the project. We have spent over 10 years trying to push for these improvements so are delighted with the news. Thank you Darren Bowler, one of the CBF trustees for your perseverance in pushing this forward. This brings us nicely to the next hurdle, the £100,000! If you can not join us for the triathlon but would like to help please consider sponsoring me and Claudia here. The sign ups for the Christian Blandford Fund Triathlon are going really well, but we are still short of the target 70 people we would like to have partaking. Please forward this to somebody who may be interested in joining us for a great weekend while fund raising for this very important and targeted project. If you are thinking about signing up and haven’t done so yet, please do so now here. Those of you who have decided to join us, thank you! This next bit is for you:
  1. If you have any friends or family who you think would like to join you please encourage them to join, we could do with just a few more signing up.
  2. We hope all participants will donate £99 each before the event to help cover event costs, the Blandfords have made a donation to cover the rest. If you have not done so please do so here
  3. Please makes sure you have registered with skyline
  4. Please set up a just giving fund raising page and share it with friends, family and co workers. Search for "CBF" in organised event and select no to "Have any of your selected charities contributed to the cost of your event?"
  5. If your company has some kind of a matching or charity donation scheme please look into it for us. Claudia or I are very happy to pitch to any companies if that is required.
  6. We are staying at the Lodore Falls Hotel and and Skyline have negotiated a preferential rate of £120 per person per night for dinner bed and breakfast. They have held a mixture of twins and doubles and should have contacted you about it. If you would like to stay somewhere else that is absolutely fine, you can search for hotels here
  7. Claudia and I are getting the 1430 train from London, Euston to Penrith (North Lakes) on the Friday 18th May.  Let us know if you book the train too so that we can organise for a mini bus or taxi to pick us all up.  We return on the 1207 train on the Sunday 20th May, arriving at Euston at 1518.
  8. Any more questions? look at the FAQ and feel free to contact us
  9. Finally and most importantly, thank you for being part of our team, we are delighted you are with us!
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Time is running out to register!

January 19, 2018 by Peter · Leave a comment
Click here to apply for the CBF Triathlon You are running out of time to register for the Christian Blandford Fund Triathlon! Lots of people have now signed up but we also have lots of friends who said they are going to sign up who have not yet done so. You know who you are! Please do so as soon as possible by clicking here and following the instructions. All participants are expected to make a donation of a minimum of £99 to cover their costs but if you would rather do this later just sign up with Skyline and let us know that the payment is coming later. On a separate note we received a lovely thank you note from St George's Hospital which we would like to share with you: Thank you from St. George’s    
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And we’re off!!

May 14, 2015 by Claudia · Leave a comment

Rocket

  The red rocket is on its way full of goodies for the kids at St George's Hospital. Details of contents to come...
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New delivery to St Georges

December 19, 2014 by Claudia · Leave a comment
A couple of weeks ago I did a quick delivery to St George's Hospital! The Red Rocket was packed full of goodies and ready to go, I delivered...

2 kids electric ride on cars - Going to operations in a little electric car is far more fun and maybe less scary than on a wheelchair.

16 Night lights - little things are sometimes important

3 plug in electric portable heaters - bizarre but well needed

3 mini iPads - for the play specialist to carry around as a tool to help distract children when needed.

11 Whiteboards - for the kids' rooms

The Rocket - full of goodies

The Rocket - full of goodies

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Food Glorious Food

October 21, 2014 by Peter · Leave a comment
We strongly feel that our goal is to improve the life of children staying in hospitals. Sometimes that means spending money on buying things that make life better, but sometimes it involves putting pressure (gentle or otherwise) on authorities to make changes that we feel are important. All of the trustees in The Christian Blandford Fund, Peter, Claudia, Amy and Darren, have had children who have spent considerable time in NHS hospitals and have strong views of how to help others in that situation. One of our big concerns was the quality of the food in the wards at St George's. At the Royal Marsden there was a wonderful chef and an assistant who took individual orders from each of the kids and made it freshly for them. At St George's there was a trolley with pre cooked and reheated food similar to what you would get in an airplane, unsurprisingly much of the food was left untouched by the kids. For some reason this has been a battle that has taken a long time to win, but we are delighted to have finally made some progress. Together with Samuel's Charity we were ready to pay for the cost of having a couple of hostesses to take the children's orders, so the food could be prepared in the kitchens. The hospital, fortunately, managed to find the funds from elsewhere and the quality of the food is now considerably improved. We are delighted, well done to Martin, Samuel's dad, who did so much to push this forward.

There are big plans afoot to make improvements at St George's and we hope that our voice continues to be heard so the things that we feel need to be improved upon are prioritised.

Food
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Easter Monday (and my sister Sam’s Birthday)

April 9, 2007 by Peter · Leave a comment

Christian has been pretty unwell all weekend. His temperature has got up to 40.3 C, this has made him very uncomfortable and he has had vomiting and diarrhea. They are not sure if it is due to a Bacterial infection or a Virus but his CPR count has risen to 250 which, apparently, is a sign of bacterial infection. They have added a third intravenous antibiotic to help combat it.

Claudia seems to be suffering from the same bug as Christian has and to top it all off Henry did a Superman off a climbing frame and had to go for an X-Ray at A&E to make sure it wasn’t fractured.

Christian seems to be getting better, his temperature is not quite so high and he’s a bit happier. Wendy (Nanna) is staying with him at St George’s tonight to give me a break and Bob and Marc (Claudia’s dad and brother) are looking after him tomorrow while I go to work.

Christian is also getting GCSF which boosts his neutrophils so hopefully he will soon be better equipped to fight the infection.

Posted in Blog, Christian's Story. Tagged with , , , , .
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