LETTERS: West Midlands ambulance, children's hospice and heart disease - The Coventry Observer

LETTERS: West Midlands ambulance, children's hospice and heart disease

Coventry Editorial 6th Oct, 2018   0

LETTERS

Responding to news that West Midlands Ambulance Service is the most efficient in the country, according to the Carter Report…

About five years ago I was suddenly taken ill with a life-threatening condition and needed instant treatment.

The first response team arrived before my wife had even put the phone down.




By the time they helped me down the stairs – which probably wasn’t easy – the ambulance had arrived and within an hour I was with a a consultant.

I was astonished at the fast response, every minute counted in that hour.


I have the utmost respect for medical profession, it’s a magnificent service I couldn’t do it for five minutes.

When I returned to work as a councillor my first meeting was with the head of the hospital trust at a scrutiny committee. Before we even started I stood up as best I could and gave him a standing ovation. My colleagues all joined in. It was probably the first scrutiny committee and the last that has ever done that.

Councillor David Skinner

Conservative, Westwood

Coventry City Council

Acorns Children’s Hospice is the UK’s largest children’s hospice charity, supporting children and families across Warwickshire. There are many adult hospices serving communities across our region as well.

For all of us, the support we receive from members of the public is crucial for us to continue providing our specialist services. Without you, we simply couldn’t run our hospices, offer the care we do, or even staff our retail shops.

Your generosity knows no bounds; from donating your time and talents to hosting numerous fundraisers and completing a whole host of sponsored events and challenges to help us raise the funds needed every year to run our hospices.

Acorns will be one of the more than 100 hospices taking part in this year’s Hospice Care Week (8-14 October). This national campaign aims to raise awareness of hospice care across the UK and theme for this year is ‘Heart My Hospice’.

As Hospice Care Week approaches, we want to thank our supporters for all the love they’ve shown us and other local hospices over the years. Please continue to support us all in the future in whatever way you can – whether it be donating, volunteering or showing you care on social media by spreading the word about the wonderful work we do. There has never been a more important time to support your local hospice.

Toby Porter

Chief Executive

Acorns Children’s Hospice

I see first-hand the incredible impact gifts left in wills make to the charity. Research funded by the BHF has helped halve death rates from heart and circulatory diseases over the past 50 years and so much of our work has only been possible thanks to the amazing individuals who have remembered the BHF in their Will.

These special gifts fund more than a quarter of all cardiovascular research in the UK, which makes them incredibly important to help us beat heartbreak forever for the 7 million people living with these conditions right now.

In the past year alone, residents in the West Midlands left over £4.4 million in their Wills to the British Heart Foundation to help fund life saving research into heart and circulatory disease, including heart disease, stroke and vascular dementia. I would personally like to honour these people and express our gratitude for the research breakthroughs and thousands of lives they have helped to save.

But there’s still so much more to do, and there are approximately 650,000 people in the West Midlands living with cardiovascular disease right now. A gift of any size, after you’ve provided for your loved ones, will enable the BHF to continue to fund pioneering research to find future cures and treatments into heart and circulatory conditions.

A recent survey to support ‘Will Power’, the BHF’s campaign to encourage people to consider leaving a legacy in their Will, showed that the British public would like to be remembered for their generosity, kindness and humour over their wealth or professional work achievements. 7 in 10 of those asked said they wished they could do more to help others and a quarter said they wanted their Will to improve the lives of others.

To find out more about leaving a gift in your Will and to download a free Wills guide, please visit bhf.org.uk/wills

Simon Gillespie,

Chief Executive, British Heart Foundation

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