Help A Heart Appeal Could you help us improve outcomes for our most vulnerable heart patients? Our Paediatric Intensive Care Unit is the largest and busiest single-centre PICU in the UK and caters for 35 specialties, including cardiac. Of all the unit’s heart patients, around 25% are deemed at high risk of having a cardiac arrest. The number of children who survive a cardiac arrest in hospital is only 54%, and those that do often experience additional health complications as a result, which can impact their life expectancy and quality of life. That’s why we've launched our new Help A Heart Appeal. We need to raise £50,000 to fund a new, quality research role on our PICU, to help us lower the chance of our heart patients arresting. The specialist nurse is responsible for: Helping to identify our most at-risk patients Introducing and increasing measures to reduce the possibility of a cardiac arrest happening Ensuring nurses caring for patients at the bedside are prepared for high-risk patients Educating staff, so if a cardiac arrest does happen, they feel ready to respond in a safe and efficient way Collecting quality data to measure the role’s success. We are the first paediatric hospital in the UK to implement such a role. The same project conducted across 15 hospitals in America was found to reduce cardiac arrests by 33%. While we already have this specialist nurse in post for an initial 18 months, we need to fundraise to ensure the continuation of this important project. Can you help a heart? DonateRegister your fundraising Manage Cookie Preferences