News

A mum whose teenage daughter died unexpectedly has described an emotional meeting with a young boy who received the gift of life from her daughter through organ donation.

To mark Organ Donation Week (7th -13th September 2020) - Nicola Lee –  who is a member of Kettering General Hospital’s Organ Donation Committee – is speaking about the moment on March 14, this year, when she met four-year-old Ollie Jolliff, from Poole, and his family. Ollie is alive today because of organ donation by Nicola’s daughter Miriam.

Miriam Lee, a pupil at Brooke Weston Academy, died aged 17 of a sudden and totally unexpected cardiac arrest in 2016. Miriam strongly believed in donation and therefore her family had no hesitation in enabling donations which have gone on to save or significantly improve the lives of four people.

Kettering General Hospital has won a prestigious national HSJ (Health Service Journal) Award for the way it collects and records data about patients to support clinical care.

The award was announced on September 4, 2020, and was one of five KGH initiatives which had reached the finals of the HSJ Awards in a number of different categories.

KGH entered its Clinical Coding Transformation Programme in the Operations and Performance category of the awards under the title - Getting it right for our patients, staff and the Trust.

KGH staff are showing their support for organ donation and having a walk to boost their wellbeing,

On Monday and Tuesday (September 7-8) they are invited to our Pocket Park to take part in our Virtual Walk event as part of national Organ Donation Week from 10am-4pm on both days.

The walk has been organised by KGH’s Organ and Tissue Donation Committee and will be around a short heart-shaped course (or around the Pocket Park generally) to demonstrate our staff’s strong support for organ donation during the national week.

There is a free raffle to win a £899 top of the range Whirlpool washing machine, free coffee, tea and juice and cakes and biscuits, and some freebies and giveaways.

Leaflets will be on hand to help staff join the national register and understand more about the importance of letting your relatives know about your decision and the recent change to the law. Leaflets will also be available throughout the week at a stand in main reception.

Staff are invited to come along and spend a few minutes at the event – it will be a good short break in the day and has been supported by the Trust as a way to promote staff health and wellbeing.

A big thanks from the KGH Organ and Tissue Donation Committee to our Estates and Facilities team AND Astley Signs for the lift wraps and banners around the site (pictured) which promote organ donation awareness.

• Staff at Kettering General Hospital have been involved in major research studies into Covid-19 to help make the world a safer place.
• Respiratory Consultant, Dr Nasir Siddique, Consultant Anaesthetist, Dr Dhinesh Sundaran, A&E Consultant, Dr Adrian Ierina, and Interim Head of Research, Dr Ajay Verma, and their teams, have supported the important work.

• Research into Covid-19 within the NHS is crucial to help find the most effective treatments for it and to better understand the development of the pandemic. KGH has been involved in four important studies:

• Staff from Kettering General Hospital are taking part in ground-breaking national research to see if dogs can be trained to detect people with Covid-19 by simply sniffing them.

• If successful the trial would mean detector dogs could be used at places like airports to screen for coronavirus – even if the passengers aren’t displaying any physical symptoms.

• On July 9 KGH became one of the first hospitals in the country to start to send in live samples for use in the research trial which is being carried out by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Durham University and Medical Detection Dogs, supported by the Department of Health. KGH is also the top recruiting hospital site for the trial with more than 92 staff taking part at August 2020.

Kettering General Hospital has completed a £2.3m upgrade of two of its Cardiac Catheter Laboratory procedures rooms for heart patients.

 Student Alley puts personal pain to one side.

• Kettering General Hospital is saying a sincere and heart-felt thank you to members of the public, companies and charitable organisations that have supported us during the coronavirus pandemic.
• Since March the hospital has received almost 300,000 gifts ranging from food and drink to personal protective equipment, hand creams, hand-made theatre scrubs and home-made laundry bags for uniforms.
• Front-line staff explain why the gifts were such a morale booster during the pandemic