Heart-throb Bradley Simpson, from pop rock band The Vamps, took time out from rehearsals for his world tour to surprise patients at our hospital.

With excitement building for this summer’s free public art event, The Big Sleuth, the star spent a few hours in our Play and Admissions Centre designing and painting a miniature bear, which could now make it onto the 10-week trail.

The 21-year-old from Sutton Coldfield was joined by lots of excited fans as he used inspiration from their hospital visits and love of music to add his artistic flair to the project.

The Big Sleuth, so named because sleuth is the collective noun for a group of bears, will see up to 100 giant bear sculptures (and bear cubs created by schools and young people) leave their paw prints all over our city as it gets set to be known as Bear-mingham from July.

The project, brought by our charity and creative producers Wild in Art, comes hot on the heels of The Big Hoot which attracted more than 800,000 visitors and in total raised over £625,000 for our hospital.

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