What we fund

Maternity and Neonatal Intensive Care Units

We are delighted to have recently used some of our charitable funds to help make a difference to the environment and surroundings on the Maternity and Neonatal Intensive Care Units here at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The NICU improvements included the purchase of comfortable new furniture and the installation of uplifting wall artwork at the entrance and in the parent’s sitting room, costing a total of £5,542. Spending time with a baby on the intensive care unit can be a very stressful experience for parents, and the improvements to the area are intended to help ease anxiety and to give parents a quiet space away from a busy, bustling clinical environment.

We have also made improvements to the parent bedrooms and ensuite bathrooms on the NICU, at a cost of £19,337.29. These are used on a daily basis by families with babies on the unit, and the length of patient stays can range from a few days to a few months. Families are encouraged to spend as much time on the unit as they can to bond with their new baby while they are receiving the specialist care that they need, and we want their time in hospital to be as comfortable and as stress-free as it possibly can be in the circumstances.

We also were happy to fund a comfy new sofa, chair and coffee table for our Maternity A staffroom. The room originally used by the team was small and cramped, and wasn’t an appropriate place for staff to have a much-needed quality break during their shifts. The new room, a place for our maternity colleagues to relax and recuperate, is vital for staff welfare and in turn ensures they can continue to provide the best quality patient care. This cost £2,641 of our charitable funds.

Thank you so much to our kind donors, fundraisers and volunteers for helping to raise these crucial funds for the benefit of our patients and staff – they really do make such a difference to the wellbeing of all involved on our wards, and yet these projects couldn’t happen were it not for charitable support. Thank you too to Tesco, who have pledged £1,000 via their Community Grants scheme, and The Shepherd Street Trust and The Harold and Alice Bridges Charity who donated £3,000 and £2,000 respectively, towards the NICU improvements.

Tom 2 Cots

We have funded six brand new top-of-the-range cots, which are designed to enhance the care provided to babies receiving treatment in Ward 8 at Royal Preston Hospital.

Made possible by our amazing supporters and donors, plus generous grants from The Shepherd Street Trust, Cash for Kids Lancashire, The Medicash Programme, and the Rotary Amounderness Preston. Costing £18,000 and known for their safety-focused design and unrestricted access for staff to provide their continued excellent care, The Trust’s Neonatal Unit will also benefit from having access to these cots on a case-by-case basis.

Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Staffroom Refurbishment

Thanks to your support and generosity we have been able to update the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit staffroom. Previously a small, dated, and uncomfortable room, which was no longer suited to giving our NICU staff the rest and calm that they so deserved, the newly updated break room can now support break times, which are especially important for staff health and wellbeing, particularly in such a stressful, potentially emotional environment as the NICU, where it can be difficult for colleagues to separate themselves, both physically and mentally, from the young patients and families they care for every day.

Pregnancy Loss Counselling Room

Thanks to charitable donations we’ve been able to fund the development of a special pregnancy loss bereavement room, at a cost of just under £8,000. The room was converted from an existing staff refreshment bay that was no longer required, and the new space was developed with the wellbeing of the parents at the forefront of the plans. The new room allows women and their partners a safe, calming space to grieve their loss, receive counselling, and discuss their next steps.

Maternity Bereavement Suite

Baby Beat worked with the maternity team to fund the creation of a Maternity Bereavement suite which we hope will make it just a little easier for those families who have to go through the loss of a baby. The suite will be a safe space for parents to grieve and spend time together with their baby away from a busy maternity ward. Thanks to the support of a number of generous grant providers and individuals we raised over £33,000 to refurbish and create this beautiful new room.

Electric breast pumps for Neonatal Unit

Thanks to our generous supporters, new mums on the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Royal Preston Hospital will now be able to benefit from the use of these state-of-the-art electric breast pumps, bought with charitable funds.

They are the best pump on the market for mothers of premature babies who can find it difficult to initiate lactation and express milk, and they will make it easier and more convenient for mums to express their milk when they need to whilst they are on the unit, to allow them to spend more time with their new baby.

Bedside Resus Units and telemetry and maternal monitors for the Delivery Suite. 

Two Lifestart trolleys, enabling the resuscitation and stabilisation of newborns by the bedside and with the umbilical cord intact, have been purchased for the unit at a cost of nearly £28,000 thanks to our generous supporters.

Donations also funded two mobile telemetry units to add to the three in use by the maternity unit since 2016. The equipment helps ensure expectant mums remain as mobile as possible when complex pregnancies require additional monitoring of the baby in the womb, and can even be used to monitor the baby’s heartbeat even in the birthing pool.