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More than 300 people took up the offer of a free heart check this week, enabling them to have access to the treatment they may vitally need. Staff from The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT) and a team from UK heart valve disease charity, Heart Valve Voice, were at Queen Square in Wolverhampton aboard a blue ‘Your Heart Matters’ bus. They saw 319 people and found: 16 heart murmurs, atrial fibrillation (a condition that causes an irregular and often abnormally fast heart rate) in eight people, 26 other concerns (such as chest pain or palpitations).

Cancer patients attending Wolverhampton’s New Cross Hospital will benefit from a ‘world class service’ thanks to two new pieces of radiotherapy equipment which complete a £17 million programme. The Xstrahl unit is a low energy x-ray unit used to treat skin cancer and the HDR Brachytherapy unit or Flexitron is a radiotherapy machine that treats gynaecological cancers. Both machines replaced older models.

She provided one of the enduring images of the Invictus Games and Wolverhampton NHS star Kelly Leonard says she hopes she has inspired others after competing for Team UK. A video on social media of an emotional Kelly talking about the pride of wearing the Union Jack on her chest captured the hearts and spirit of the event in The Hague. The mother of three, who is The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust’s Clinical Lead Children’s Therapy Services (Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy) at The Gem Centre in Wednesfield, has just returned from the Netherlands, where she was vice captain of the British team.

Swimmers made a splash to raise £1,500 for The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT) Charity to coincide with Bowel Cancer Awareness Month. Six people of all ages swam 20 lengths of the pool at Bert Williams Leisure Centre in Wednesfield to raise the money for Bilston Rotary Club, which donated the money to the Trust’s Charity. All six have some connection to Bilston, whether they live in the town or are part of the Bilston Rotary Club.

Did you know it is estimated that 130,000 people in the UK have Multiple Sclerosis (MS)? It is a condition that can affect the brain and spinal cord, with varying symptoms including problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation or balance. With it being MS Awareness Week (25 April - 1 May), we have joined forces with our MS Clinical Nurse Specialist team to raise awareness and give insight into their daily duties.

A hugely popular and much-loved ‘model employee with a heart of gold’ is retiring from The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust after nearly two decades’ service. Described as ‘a fine ambassador, and a valued and well-liked member of the team’ Porter Tony Latham, from Wednesfield, retired today on his 66th birthday after 19 years at New Cross Hospital. Father of two Tony, a widower, is retiring to spend more time with his nine grandchildren, his tabby cat, fishing, cycling, motorcycling and watching his beloved Wolves, where until recently he was a car park attendant at Molineux for 20 years.

It weighs four and a half tonnes, has undertaken 50,000 scans and has now disappeared through a second-floor removable panel. The old MRI scanner at Wolverhampton’s New Cross Hospital made quite the exit! It is being replaced by a new MRI scanner and preparations for its entry are dominating the skyline. Costing around £1 million, the new scanner will be hoisted by crane to lift it into place in Radiology.

Specialists from New Cross Hospital are supporting free heart checks that are being offered from a pop-up bus in Wolverhampton next week. Staff from The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT) and a team from UK heart valve disease charity, Heart Valve Voice, will be at Queen Square on April 27th from 10am until 3pm aboard a blue ‘Your Heart Matters’ bus. They will be offering advice about heart valve disease and there will be the opportunity to have a heart rhythm check and a stethoscope check (cardiac auscultation) which detects heart valve disease.

“If I lived in Australia, I still would have travelled to New Cross Hospital to give birth” is the glowing endorsement from one devoted mother following the birth of her twins. Kara Penfold, 29, lives more than 100 miles from New Cross Hospital in Wales, but says “having my babies at New Cross has been the best decision I've ever made.” Kara and her husband Sam are proud parents to their children Ralffi, four, Dyfi, three, and the latest additions to their family, twins Nico and Lleucu.

A group of NHS singers is hitting all the right notes after reaching the semi-finals of a singing competition next month – and is hoping to recruit new members. The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust Staff Choir, The RWT Singers, has qualified for the semi-finals of the Midlands Choir of the Year competition. The RWT Singers is one of 16 choirs appearing on Sunday, May 22 at The Hub, St Mary’s Church in Lichfield, bidding to reach the finals.

Every 15 minutes somebody is diagnosed with bowel cancer in the UK – that’s nearly 43,000 each year. This Bowel Cancer Awareness Month, which takes place annually across the month of April, we’re highlighting the symptoms of the disease which include: bleeding from your bottom and / or blood in your poo, a persistent and unexplained change in bowel habit, unexplained weight loss, extreme tiredness for no obvious reason, a pain or lump in your tummy.

Medal-winning Kelly Leonard has left her Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust workplace behind today to represent Team UK at the Invictus Games as vice-captain. RAF veteran and former physical training instructor Kelly Leonard, Clinical Lead Children’s Therapy Services (Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy) is journeying by bus and the Eurotunnel to The Hague in The Netherlands. She joins the 61-strong Team UK team of wounded, injured and sick military personnel and veterans in a total of 350 people competing in nine sports from April 16-22 at The Hague.

A Coseley grandmother is urging people to make sure they do their bowel cancer screening checks and credits the home test kit with saving her life. Marjorie Harper, 74, has praised staff at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT) after she was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2019. She says it came as a “massive shock” shortly after she’d had a hip replacement. Marjorie received her bowel screening kit and now believes it was a “life saver” as she would never have known she had bowel cancer due to having no symptoms.

With the number of people in local hospitals with Covid-19 increasing once more, health leaders in Wolverhampton are urging residents to remain vigilant and to do all they can to stop the spread of the virus this Easter. There are currently 123 patients at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust either because of, or with, Covid-19 – up from just 24 this time last month. And while the Covid-19 infection rate has dropped in recent days, this is partly as a result of the ending of free rapid testing for most individuals, which will mean that more cases go undetected.

It’s Parkinson’s Awareness Week – an opportunity to highlight the condition (which is a type of brain disease) and to drive change which will help improve the quality of life for those living with it. When diagnosing Parkinson’s, patients usually suffer with at least two of three symptoms: Tremor, Slow movement and Stiffness. It's thought around 1 in 500 people are affected by Parkinson's disease and people start to develop symptoms when they’re over 50.

Jubilant healthcare worker Catherine Carwardine insists she is going to carry on working at New Cross Hospital – despite winning a “life changing” £3m mansion. She won the luxury house in Windermere in the Omaze Million Pound House draw competition after purchasing a ticket on Valentine’s Day.Catherine, who is a Clinical Facilitator for the hospital’s patient and staff TeleTracking system, and husband Chris, both 59, are planning a double celebration as it’s their 25th wedding anniversary this year.

Older and more vulnerable people are being encouraged to get their spring booster vaccine to give them added protection against Covid-19. Following guidance from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JVCI), a second booster is being offered to people aged 75 and over, older adults in residential care, and anyone aged 12 and over who is immunosuppressed or has a weakened immune system.

Welcome to my first blog! This is the first instalment of what will be a monthly update, as I would like to use this opportunity to speak to you directly about what our Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) are up to and to celebrate examples of their good practice. At the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, we employ approximately 600 of the 170,000 AHPs working within the NHS. Collectively, AHPs accumulate over four million patient contacts per week, and make up the third largest workforce in the NHS.

A radiographer at Wolverhampton’s New Cross Hospital has become one of its first to be able to prescribe radiotherapy for prostate cancer patients. Renita Horton, Prostate Consultant Therapeutic Radiographer (Training) has completed extra competencies over the last 18 months, including a non-medical prescribing course allowing her to prescribe independently and prescribe radical radiotherapy independently.

Starting next week, I am going to be delivering CNO monthly briefing sessions in the form of presentations to staff across both The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT) and Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust (WHT). As Chief Nursing Officer, I feel it’s really important to be visible, accessible and to communicate with as many staff as I can but also in the clearest way possible. Only then can we really know what everyone’s views are and deliver on those objectives.

The Maternity Team at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT) is on the lookout for mums-to-be to take part in a trial testing a new way of supporting first-time mothers with feeding their babies. This new way is called the ABA-feed intervention. As the UK has some of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world, the study aims to optimise local support to see if this can improve breastfeeding rates and help families to feed their babies confidently.

An innovative new healthcare passport has been launched at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT) to enhance the care of children and young people with complex needs living within the city. The healthcare passport ‘All About Me’ has been trialled by several families over the last few years and their feedback has helped shape its launch. It has finally been published for those who access Children’s Services at RWT to take away their anxiety around being nervous about meeting healthcare professionals for the first time.

Mum-to-be Dariene Adams was hundreds of miles away from home when she went into early labour with her first baby but described her experience with The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust’s Neonatal Unit as “faultless”. University of Wolverhampton Motorsport Engineering student Dariene, 24 welcomed her baby boy Micah Adams, weighing 845g, into the world on 11 February.

A long-serving patient at Wolverhampton’s New Cross Hospital has got himself a job – while still receiving care on the ward! By the end of March, Jude Aston, 17, had spent 231 consecutive days on Ward A21. But his condition hasn’t stopped him from getting a paid post, and he is now proudly doing social media and communications for Wolverhampton-based courier firm Quality Assured Couriers Ltd.

Nine fundraisers from The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust have completed the London Landmarks Half Marathon (LLHM) 2022, clocking up more than £4,000 for its charity. The LLHM is the first half marathon (13.1 miles) to take runners through the heart of the capital on a closed road route that showcases the city’s iconic landmarks. The event started at The Strand, before crossing and re-crossing Waterloo Bridge, passing Covent Garden, the Thames, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Bank of England, the Tower of London and the Houses of Parliament before finishing in Downing Street.

As Bowel Cancer Awareness Month gets underway, people in Wolverhampton are being reminded of the importance of regular screening once they reach the age of 60. Bowel cancer is very treatable but the earlier it is diagnosed, the easier it is to treat. People whose cancer is diagnosed at an early stage have a much higher chance of successful treatment than those whose cancer has become more widespread.

Two birthing partners will be welcome at both The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust and Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust’s delivery suites from next week. From Monday 4 April, two people can accompany pregnant women at New Cross Hospital for established labour only on our Delivery Suite and Midwifery Led Unit. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions were introduced in 2020 meaning only one birthing partner could attend as both Trusts worked to keep service users and staff as safe as possible.

A urology nurse, the Liver Nursing Team and the Gastroenterology Day Case Team at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust are now the proud owners of national silver and bronze awards. The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust had colleagues shortlisted in the British Journal of Nursing Awards which showcase nursing excellence, highlighting the critical contribution that nurses make to healthcare.

Wolverhampton’s New Cross Hospital has become one of the first in the country to develop a rota combining doctors and Advanced Critical Care Practitioners (ACCPs) in cardiac anaesthetics – putting local innovation on the national map. ACCPs have been introduced to the rota to provide a stable element as the cardiac anaesthetic fellows rotate regularly. This has delivered a service improvement and has led to increased training opportunities for the doctors in training.