With the sunshine comes some lovely news. We have had a bumper month for donations – thank you to everyone who has helped us.  The gifts will be going to support our Many More Hearts Appeal to buy an Artis One Scanner for our shiny new Cardiac Catheter Laboratory at Royal Brompton (though we still have a bit of a way to go). 

We are sometimes asked why buying such an essential piece of equipment is not possible within the NHS budget. Well, put simply, there is no NHS budget to buy it. While the hospital has the funds to refurbish the theatre itself – which is essential as it is definitely at the end of its life and could, if left, cause more harm than good – there simply isn’t the financing to equip the new facility. 

So, the hospital team turn to us... and we turn to you…

With your help, we will buy the very latest imaging technology and our patients will, once again, benefit from world-class equipment used by world-class doctors. Help us get to our target, here

Donations have also started to come through for our newest appeal, to help Harefield Hospital continue to undertake more heart and lung transplants than anywhere else in Europe. Quite the accolade, but of course it comes at a huge price. Harefield can achieve these outstanding statistics because they use cutting-edge Organ Care Systems, which are a far better alternative to keeping organs on ice.

On ice, donated hearts and lungs are viable for around three hours. With Organ Care Systems, they remain viable for up to 12 hours, which means they can be transported from further away and our transplantation team have more time to perform these critical intricate operations. With no NHS funding, these life-saving machines are not sustainable without Charity support. 

More about these two ambitions and about our Charity can be found in our spring/summer News Beat. If you have not received it and would like a copy – packed with stories of brave fundraisers, dedicated clinicians and ways you can get involved – please let me know and I will pop one in the post. 

Stop press and further excitement! We have just had confirmation that the brilliant Emily Maitlis – journalist and BBC Newsnight presenter – is going to be the host interviewer at our special evening with Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub FRS, OM at The Royal College of Physicians on Thursday 12 April.  Tickets are selling fast, so book soon – I hope to see you there.