£20,000 donated for King's Mill Hospital's scanner appeal

King’s Mill Hospital’s latest campaign, which has been running for three weeks to raise money for a new state-of- the-art nuclear gamma scanner and supported by your Chad, is already off to an exciting start, thanks to a generous donation of £20,000 from the Sutton hospital’s own volunteers.

The money has been raised through stalls that the volunteers themselves run in the main entrance at King’s Mill Hospital, selling gifts and keepsakes.

The money will go towards helping the hospital’s charity reach its target of £550,000 to fund a new gamma scanner with CT scanning technology.

It will help more than 2,000 patients each year have advanced scans and revolutionise how they are treated and diagnosed with diseases such as cancer.

Tracey Brassington, community involvement manager, for Sherwood Forest Hospitals, which runs King’s Mill, said: “We are incredibly grateful for this generous donation from our wonderful volunteers. It gives a fantastic start to our appeal and contributes to the hospital providing good care to local patients now and in the future.”

Across the trust’s three hospitals, there are 600 volunteers who give up their time to help.

Robert Bradley nuclear medicine specialist at the hospitals, whose department the scanner would sit in, said: “It’s a really exciting start, so thank you to everyone who’s been involved so far.

“It has been great to see so many people already getting behind the appeal including staff, volunteers and the public.

“We hope to reach our target of £550,000 by next summer.”

The new scanner will bring with it advanced gamma camera technology, as well as combining high-definition CT imaging with it too.

It will mean that two different scans can be carried out at the same time, without having to move the patient from one scanner to another.

Mr Bradley said:“The new technology will be especially useful for looking at things like whether cancer has spread in a patient or diagnosing illnesses such as heart disease.”

HOW TO DONATE

Donations to the appeal can be made by texting 70070 and quoting SFHC18 to donate £5 or £10, online at justgiving.com/sherwoodforest or by cash or cheque at the community hub in the entrance of King’s Mill Hospital.

Alternatively, cheques can be posted to Scanner Appeal, the Chad, Unit 2a Sherwood Oaks Business Park, off Southwell Road West, Mansfield NG18 4TB. Cheques should be made payable to Sherwood Forest Hospitals Charity.