Physical Health United Kingdom Project #30686

Providing life-saving machines for heart babies

by Tiny Tickers

Providing life-saving machines for heart babies

Project Report | Jun 9, 2020
Tiny Tickers Pulse Oximetry Campaign Update

By Katie Lawson | Head of Fundraising & Comms

Hereford County Hospital, UK

Unfortunately, we've had to pause our pulse oximetry project due to Government guidelines and to enable NHS hospitals to focus on their critical role responding to the pandemic.

We remain fully committed to campaigning for every newborn baby in the UK to have access to a pulse oximetry test and will resume as soon as it is right & safe to do so.

We're proud to have supplied 173 machines (so far) to UK hospitals in the last few years.

Thank you to all who have supported our pulse oximetry project and you can find out more information using the links below. Thanks to Hereford County Hospital for sending us this image of their machines in use during lockdown.

Thank you again for helping to give tiny hearts a better start in life,

Katie

173 pulse oximetry machines funded by Tiny Tickers

Links:

Permalink

May 13, 2020
A message from Jon Arnold, CEO & heart parent

By Jon Arnold | CEO

We wanted to drop all of our supporters a note to say a big thank you for your continued support during these difficult days. And I do hope you are staying safe and well.

We are trying our very best to keep going - however we're a tiny charity and as a health specific organisation, we are not entitled to any of the UK Government funding packages. We continue to provide existing services where possible. We continue to offer training materials and resources to health professionals. We continue to be a voice for patients and parents, and to work with the NHS and service providers. We continue to offer information, advice and support to families.

The Coronavirus pandemic has forced us to change the way we help our beneficiaries. Unfortunately, we've had to pause three of our key projects due to Government guidelines and to enable NHS hospitals to focus on their critical role responding to the pandemic. For the time being, we have suspended face-to-face sonographer training, and have paused our projects placing pulse oximetry testing machines and situs dolls in NHS Trusts. We remain fully committed to these key projects and will resume them as soon as it is right to do so.

All our other work continues, and we are also working on new ways to help health professionals and patient families at this most difficult time. This includes developing new digital resources for sonographers and support services for families.

A baby is born with a congenital heart defect every two hours in the UK - Coronavirus doesn't change that fact. Much of what is normal in our lives may have shut down, but our cause has not closed. Therefore, Tiny Tickers remains focused on doing what we can to help babies with CHD, their families, and the health professionals who look after them.

Once again a huge thank you from us all for helping us to keep supporting those facing the challenges of congenital heart defects at the worst possible time.

I hope you are well,

Kind Regards

Jon, Tiny Tickers CEO

Links:

Permalink

Mar 23, 2020
An update from Tiny Tickers

By Jon Arnold | Chief Executive

As you have very generously supported us in the past, we wanted to get in touch to let you know how we are approaching the coronavirus pandemic - the steps we are taking to help families; keep our services running; and to look after our staff.

Firstly these are very uncertain times for everyone. We are bracing ourselves for a big impact in the coming weeks but our priorities are to keep supporting patient families; to continue our services for health professionals; and to look after our colleagues. It will only be through the generosity of our supporters and donors, like you, that our services will keep running.

Even though we are facing a huge public health emergency, a baby will still be born with a serious heart condition every 2 hours. That fact remains. As does the fact that we will now need to do even more to protect them, their families, and the health professionals that look after them, over the coming weeks and months.

Here are some of the things we’re doing:

We are liaising with the NHS and others to offer the latest guidance to families affected by congenital heart defects. We understand this is a worrying time and we are diverting as much staff time as possible to ensure we respond to queries and keep providing timely and accurate information via our website and social media channels;
Following the latest Government advice, we have decided to suspend all face-to-face sonographer training for the foreseeable future. Our online training resources remain available and we will add to these in the coming weeks. Our medical staff may also be deployed into the NHS during the next few weeks - and we support this completely. We stand by all NHS staff at this difficult time and send them our very best wishes as they work selflessly and tirelessly on behalf of the public.

We’ve cancelled or postponed all other non-urgent external meetings and visits for the time being. Unfortunately, this means we will not be facilitating staff and supporter trips to hospitals or schools during this period;

Our small team of six staff all work from home, so we are well-placed to continue most of our operations as normal. Our staff are all up to date with the latest advice and we have stopped ourselves from meeting in person for the foreseeable future. Flexible working plans have been put in place in the event of school closures and/or illness among the team. We’ll do the best that we can to look after each other, and to keep things running smoothly, basically.

We are urgently assessing the potential impact of coronavirus on our funding, and hence why we are taking the time to get in touch with all past, future and current funders. With mass participation events such as marathons, corporate and school fundraising activities being cancelled or postponed, we’re preparing for tough times. We are limiting non-essential spending now so that, if there is a significant drop in our income as a result of the virus, we are as well-placed as possible to continue our key operations and services.

We don’t receive any statutory funding and, as a small charity, we don’t have very deep pockets. We may well find ourselves relying on our wonderful supporters more than ever over the coming weeks but we know we will survive. We might be small, but we have huge determination and passion in abundance!

Thank you for your support and our very best wishes. Take care and stay safe,

Jon Arnold,

CEO Tiny Tickers and Heart Parent

Links:

Tiny Tickers COVID19 Advice & Support

Permalink

‹ 1 ... 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.