Your support helps us in many different ways, we’ve listed just some of them below:

Improving our hospital

Supporting people with Learning Disabilities | help us do more

The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital treat a high number of people with Learning Disabilities each year. We’re proud of the care we offer to everyone and we are always keen to make improvements wherever possible. Last year we recruited our first ever Learning Disabilities nurse, Nathan Samuels. He has been hard at work making sure the services we provide meet the needs of people with learning disabilities. Nathan has supported staff to ensure feel supported through every step of their care journey.

But we want to do more and we need your help!

Support specialist training

We know that we can make our care even better. We want to provide specialist training to our staff so that anyone with a Learning Disability who visits our hospital will be cared for in a way which exactly meets their needs. We want to make this training mandatory so that it becomes embedded in the culture of our hospital. We believe that everyone with a Learning Disability deserves amazing care and you can help us achieve this. To provide additional training to one member of staff costs just £5. To train all our frontline staff it would cost just £800, a small cost but worth the huge positive impact! Could you help?

Help build Sensory rooms

Sensory rooms have been proven to help people with all kinds of Learning Disabilities and several Mental Health conditions. They can help make people feel more calm and happy in their care environment. We have a high number of Learning Disability patients and we believe their experience would be greatly improved by being able to offer them a sensory area. With your help we can make this happen! Make a donation today and make a difference to just one of our patients lives.

 

The Throne Project

Making our patient bathrooms dementia friendly

Here at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital we want to ensure each and every patient has the best experience whilst staying with us. For people with dementia, particularly when they are ill, hospital settings can be confusing, challenging and overwhelming. What happens in hospitals can have a profound effect on individuals and their families, not only in terms of their inpatient experience, but also their ongoing health and the decisions that are made about their future.

The Throne project has been launched to ensure our patient bathrooms provide the best environment for patients with dementia and with visual impairments. With dementia on the rise our hospital is actively taking measures to ensure we are dementia friendly at every point in a patients journey. With your help we can make this happen.

We are working with occupational therapists, nurses and doctors to ensure our toilets are as safe as possible. Just some of the things we are looking at doing when redeveloping our bathrooms will be:

• Having contrasting colour handrails and toilet seats helps patients to see key areas of the bathroom. This minimises falls and injury when using the bathroom.
• Opting for bins without a foot peddle, to ensure patients do not need to balance on one leg to open the bin.
• Clear signage to the patient bathrooms, with images. This helps support orientation and independence.
• Reduce risk of falling whilst patients are washing and dressing in bathroom, by providing rails for support and equipment.

This is a project we are working on this year! Each of our fundraising events this year will fund part of this project.

Totalizer coming soon….

Children’s HDU

The Children’s High Dependency Unit (HDU) is an important part of our hospital, caring for really poorly children and young people. We wanted to improve the look and feel of the department so it felt as welcoming as possible.

With the help of passionate supporters and passionate staff, we raised enough funds to improve the Department and make it a comfortable, suitable and vibrant space for young people. This included new graphics on the wall and new entertainment equipment for patients who spend much of their time in HDU lying in bed. We also invested in new chai- beds, so that parents would find it easier and more comfortable to stay with their children during the night.

This has had a fantastic impact on patient experience and was made possible by the generous support of people just like you.

 

How legacy giving leaves an impact

Robert was born with club feet and as a little boy underwent many operations. Since the 1970s Robert has visited The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital for various treatments and regularly visits our Orthotic Team to have his shoes made and repaired.

Robert contacted us know that he had decided to leave us a legacy.

“I realise that if I had been born five years earlier or before, I would not have been able to walk. It is because of the treatment by dedicated surgeons and nursing staff and their colleagues that I am now fully mobile. I would like to thank the members of the Orthotics Team for their efficient and courteous service.”

During Robert’s life he witnessed many advances in orthopaedic care. His generous legacy will help us to continue to research and improve. Robert’s life has been changed by the care he has received, his legacy will help to change more lives.

 

New equipment for patients

Earlier this year a bid was signed off to renovate the physio rehab facilities within the hospital in order to become a centre of excellence for lower limb rehabilitation.

New gymnasium equipment  was purchased, which give a much more professional look to the gym. Before this was brought in, the gym was looking dated and the use of the equipment was limited. With the new equipment it makes the feel of the facilities much more professional, it means the gym as a whole is reliable and can be tailored to each individual patient need.

The new state of the art Gait/biomechanical analysis equipment, provides a detailed assessment of how our patients perform daily tasks, i.e. walking or running has been really successful so far.  Before this arrived, assessments were completed by our therapy staff , meaning they would simply watch and assess. This of course can be done and can be effective, however can mean there is room for error. This has been in place for around 8 months now, and we’ve had lots of positive feedback on the thorough assessment. As this has been in place for such a short period of time we have not yet seen a progression in outcomes. We are however hoping this means less re-referrals into the system as an accurate assessment took place in rehabilitation.

When looking into renovating the gym one of the main priorities was to build a private space for patients to use if need be. This enhances patient experience as we are now giving our patients the option of using a private space rather than sharing the gym with several other patients. Two of the previous wheelchair stores have now been converted and is a safe private space for patients and therapists to perform rehabilitative massages and exercises.

Since the space has been improved there has been more workshops and activities available for patients to get involved with, in both an individual way as well as in group rehabilitation. This has significantly improved the feel of the gym, and all renovations have given users a more patient centrered feel to the space.

All these renovations have significantly improved staff morale within the physio team. They are now able to conduct thorough professional assessments and are proud to work in the gym!

 

Investing in our people

Every year our Learning and Development team put a bid in to Charitable Funds to support and enhance learning opportunities for our staff. Whether this be a nursing degree or an advance apprenticeship opportunity any member of staff can get involved if they need to. The trustees are always keen on using funding to excel our workforce, so is always signed off on the basis that any bids for training go through the committee first.

Dan was one of the people who applied for this funding towards an Information Technology Practitioner BSc (Hons) Top Up Degree. Paul Athey, Director of Finance, commented that Dan’s application was “the one bid with a clear return on investment” and offered the funding for Dan to complete his top up degree course. This entailed going to Coventry University every Saturday for a year and incorporated modules which enhanced his day job, such as  Business Computing and Advanced Information Systems.

Dan started as a volunteer at the ROH, and quickly excelled to an apprentice. Dan is now an Infrastructure Engineer in the Infrastructure team within IM&T, a role which entails building servers and storage maintenance Trust wide. He is now the proud owner of a first-class honours degree and is using the confidence and knowledge he’s gained through furthering his career to improve the quality and range of services offered by our IM&T department.

“I am forever grateful to the hospital for letting me learn new skills and grow into a fully-fledged member of ROH” Dan Baylis.”