She was on shift when a colleague from the Department of Elderly Medicine arrived with a story which moved her to tears.

Health care assistant Sally Hilton, 39, was working on Acorn Ward in Hull Women and Children’s Hospital when a member of staff from the 8^th floor appealed to them for help.

Sally said: “She asked if there was any chance we could help them because they had a patient who was due to go home the next day but wouldn’t go home without ‘their baby’.

“We have dolls on the ward here so we gave her one for the patient and they went home quite happy but it just really choked us.”

Sally, who has worked for the trust for more than eight years and became a health care assistant on Acorn 18 months ago, had planned good deeds alongside treats such as a holiday and shopping trips to mark her 40^th birthday in June.

And she decided to add the ambition of collecting 40 dolls in 40 days to help calm and comfort patients with dementia coming to Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

“I used the power of Facebook to post a status and it just went crazy,” said Sally.

“Within two weeks, I’d collected 64 dolls and it’s now gone up to 77. It was lovely to see the generosity, not just of my friends and family, but of people I didn’t know who heard what I was doing.

“I’d people coming up to my door to give me dolls and you should have seen my living room by the time I was finished.”

Supported by ward sister Joanne O’Connor, Sally was able to hand over the dolls to the Department of Elderly Medicine to give to patients on Ward 8, 80, 9 and 90.

Joanne said: “We’re all very proud of Sally. I was on shift with her when it happened and it moved us all, thinking about the patient.

“But Sally was determined to do something about it and we’re thinking of making it an annual event.”

Debbie Hamer, business manager for the wards, said: “Some of our patients go back to their younger days and like to have a little cuddle with a doll or a teddy.

“This was just such a lovely gesture by Sally and patients are free to take them home.”

The family of a mother who touched hearts across East Yorkshire during her battle with breast cancer are helping people living in pain.

Mum-of-two Kerry Key won widespread admiration for her refusal to give up after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Determined to continue looking after her son Lewis and daughter Georgia, Kerry threw herself into fundraising for local charities before she died in February 2013, seven years after her initial diagnosis. She was just 36.

Now, the Kerry Key Foundation, set up by her friends and family, has donated almost £2,000 to help patients with lymphoedema, a painful, chronic condition which causes swelling.

(left to right): Shirley Evans, Laura Davies, Carol Dobson, Margaret Davies and Annette Holmes

Shirley Evans, a lymphoedema specialist nurse working for Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said the donation will fund a lymphatic drainage machine which can be used by patients to ease symptoms at home.

She said: “This machine gives a lot of comfort to patients and helps them manage their symptoms.

“We have three machines which we loan out and we used to give them to patients for a month at a time. However, the demand has grown so much that we can only give it to people for two weeks at a time.

“Now, thanks to the foundation, we can afford to buy another machine which will be such a benefit to our patients.”

Lymphoedema is often linked to the removal of lymph nodes during cancer treatment and the foundation heard about the need for an additional machine from patient Carol Dobson.

Carol works alongside Laura Davies at Preston Primary, where the women are both teaching assistants. Laura was Kerry’s cousin and is a trustee of the foundation along with her mother Margaret, Kerry’s aunt.

Laura said: “Kerry was a big part of people’s lives, even those who didn’t know her. She was such a bubbly person and her determination to fight gave us courage throughout her illness.”

Margaret said: “We wanted to make sure she was never forgotten so we started the foundation to keep her memory alive.

“We like to help local charities and good causes and when Carol told us about the need for the machine, we thought we could help.

“Kerry had lymphedema so it seemed like the right thing to do.”

Shirley works in the team based at the Queen’s Centre with nurses Annette Holmes and Fiona Kent and administrator Pat Gray.

She said: “We expect to take delivery of the new machine very soon so we hope to be able to loan it out to patients before Christmas.

“We can’t thank the foundation enough for what they are doing for our patients.”

Energy bills at East Yorkshire’s two main hospitals could be slashed by £39m after plans for a major energy upgrade were approved.

Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust plans to build two combined heat and power (CHP) plants at Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital as part of a £13.7m energy scheme.

New LED lighting would also be introduced at both hospitals, with electrical systems overhauled and upgraded to improve efficiency.

Duncan Taylor, director of estates, facilities and development, told a meeting of the trust board this month the scheme had the potential to save £39m in energy costs over 25 years.

Mr Taylor said the current energy facilities at Hull Royal had “exceeded the end of their useful life and are no longer fit for purpose.”

He said: “We have been looking at a number of ways of saving significant energy within the organisation over the last couple of years.

“Energy costs are only going to get higher and this will effectively halve our energy costs. Reducing our carbon makes a significant reduction in the target for CO2 emissions so this seems like a win-win.”

As well as complying with carbon reduction targets set for 2020 and reaping major carbon energy and financial savings, the work will also reduce backlog maintenance, currently standing at £64m.

The trust board has approved an outline business case for the major programme of works and it will now be passed to NHS Improvement for consideration.

If approved, a loan application for £13.7m will then be submitted to NHS Improvement to fund the work.

The latest panel of the Born into a City of Culture artwork project was installed at Hull Women and Children’s Hospital earlier today. The October panel, with its autumnal oranges, reds and browns, is the tenth of 12 panels to be mounted in the hospital’s entrance.

The project involves taking the footprint of every baby born in Hull in 2017 and using these images to create a unique piece of artwork depicting trees throughout the seasons. The babies’ footprints represent leaves, while midwives hand prints also feature as the ‘supporting’ tree trunks.

Every month, a new panel is installed and the October panel features 396 sets of tiny toes from babies born in either the Fatima Allam Birth Centre, the labour ward, or at home during the month. To date, there are more than 4,000 babies represented across the piece, which will be complete by January 2018.

The Born into a City of Culture project is supported by the Hull 2017 Creative Communities programme and has been made possible with the support of local design and marketing company, Jenko.

Postcards featuring images of the baby footprint panels are available for sale within the Women and Children’s Hospital or via the community midwifery office, priced £1 each. Each postcard represents two months i.e. January and February; March and April; May and June; July and August; and the latest postcard features the footprints of babies born during September and October. The whole set will be complete in 6 postcards.

Hospital appointment times have been reduced dramatically for scores of patients after health care assistants were trained to deliver vital heart checks to patients.

Around 60 patients attending appointments at Hull Women and Children’s Hospital every month had to go to the Hull Royal Infirmary’s tower block for electrocardiograms (ECGs) to check heart rhythms and electrical activity before undergoing surgery including hysterectomy.

Now, health care assistants at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust Trust have been trained to perform the checks so patients, many of them elderly and with more than one health condition, receive all pre-operation assessments under one roof.

Julie Fellowes, sister for gynaecology and the breast care clinic, said the new system had reduced hospital appointment times by around 90 minutes, improving patient experience.

She said: “Historically, the ECGs have been done in the ECG department in the tower block.

“When our patients came in for pre-op assessments, we had to send them to the tower block if they required an ECG.

“We were sending approximately 15 patients a week over to the tower block, often out into the cold, and many of these patients are elderly or with other conditions. They would have to sit and wait in the department for their turn and then come all the way back here.”

The inconvenience to patients was discovered by Eileen Henderson, head of outpatient services, during a review of the main outpatient suite in the tower block.

Realising the need to improve the experience for patients, staff in the gynaecology outpatients department transformed an under-used “quiet room” in the Women and Children’s Hospital into their own ECG room.

Six Band 2 health care assistants have received specialised training, allowing them to carry out ECGs to appropriate professional standards.

The health care assistants underwent competency core training and were then shown how to carry out ECGs before being supervised in the role.

While they can carry out the tests, the results are passed to registered nurses for interpretation. Any abnormalities or concerns are then forwarded to consultants for review.

The department, on the ground floor of the Women and Children’s Hospital, currently shares an ECG machine with Cedar and Rowan wards, although staff are attempting to raise £2,000 for their own machine.

Reducing the length of appointment times will also benefit the trust’s “referral to treatment” or RTT performance target as it will enable staff to see more outpatients than before, reducing waiting times.

Sister Fellowes said staff had worked hard to find a solution in the best interests of their patients.

“They are a very proactive team,” she said. “They themselves realised it wasn’t nice for the ladies to have to go to the tower block and found a way of making this a better experience for them.”

Staff, patients and visitors are being urged to be on the look-out today for a giraffe lost somewhere in Castle Hill Hospital.

Margaret Atkin, 78, was given the toy giraffe by great grandson Jacob Rider, four, when she was admitted to the intensive care unit at the hospital in Cottingham nine weeks ago.

The soft toy, which doesn’t have a name, had a rip in its back and intensive care nurses used surgical tape to seal its ‘wound’ before Mrs Atkin was transferred to Ward 27 as her condition improved.

However, the giraffe was lost when Mrs Atkin was moved onto Ward 29 on November 22 as her recuperation continues.

Now, Jacob’s mum Kirsty is appealing to staff and anyone visiting patients at the hospital to be on the look-out for the giraffe.

She said: “Jacob asked where the giraffe was at the weekend and I told him it was still in hospital getting fixed.

”But it’s my Nanna who is most upset. She remembers having it the night before she was moved to Ward 29 but then we realised it was missing.”

The family contacted the cleaning firm responsible for the hospital’s laundry but it hasn’t been found. They have checked lost property, the general office at Castle Hill and both wards without success.

They’ve also walked between the wards in the hope of finding the giraffe but it hasn’t turned up.

Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is emailing all staff to alert them to be on the lookout for Jacob’s giraffe and is now asking visitors to the hospital to keep their eyes peeled.

Kirsty said: “We’re wondering if someone has handed it in to one of the children’s play areas and we just hope people can help us find it. They might have seen the cross on its back and not understand the sentimental value it has for our family.”

Anyone who spots the giraffe is urged to contact the communications department at Hull Royal Infirmary on 01482 675556.

Families have thanked Hull doctors for saving their children’s lives in a moving video to mark 40 years of paediatric surgery.

Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust will play host to some of the UK’s leading children’s doctors today (Friday) to celebrate the 40^th anniversary.

A video of families whose children have undergone surgery since 2009, including some children as soon as they were born has been made by the trust’s medical education technical services team.

Dawn Smith, whose son Ellis was saved by the trust’s paediatric surgical team, said: “You can’t just say thank you to someone who has saved your life or changed it. It’s just not enough.”

Countless lives have been changed and transformed through the skills of our surgical teams, led by consultant paediatric surgeon Sanja Besarovic and known to families throughout East Yorkshire as Miss B.

Jamielea Marshall, whose son Sunny Miller had surgery when he was 12 hours old after he was born in November 2015, said: “I was scared because I didn’t find out until late on in my pregnancy that there was anything wrong.

“Miss B restored my faith in this system. She had made me think they do an amazing job.”

Surgeons from Great Ormond Street Hospital, King’s College Hospital, Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield Children’s Hospitals will present on topics including paediatric obesity in childhood, diagnosing problems in pregnancy and congenital conditions at the full-day conference in the trust’s medical lecture theatre on Friday.

NHS staff who underwent paediatric surgery as children, retired surgeons, an anaesthetist and families of child patients will also share their experiences of Hull.

Ms Besarovic  said: “We are holding this event to mark 40 years of paediatric surgery in Hull and 2017, with Hull’s year as City of Culture, seemed like a good occasion to celebrate what we have achieved.

“We have speakers who are well-known nationally and internationally who are coming to the city and most of them have spent time in Hull, either as senior house officers, locum consultants or consultants.

“It is great that they have accepted our invitation to return to the city to talk about their work.”

The Royal College of Surgeons has accredited the event with six “continuing professional development” points for doctors attending in recognition of the level of expertise present.

Colin Vize, medical director for family and women’s health at the trust, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the outstanding work our staff have achieved since we began to offer families paediatric surgery in 1977.

“So many lives have been changed in those 40 years thanks to the skill and dedication of our staff and this prestigious event, attracting some of the most important experts in the field, shines a spotlight on the essential work of this department.”

School students are watching mock operations, testing surgical skills and watching a patient recovered from a motorbike crash at a special event in Hull today.

Year 8 students from Withernsea High, Headlands School in Bridlington and South Hunsley were invited to attend “A Day in the Life of the NHS” to learn about the wide variety of health careers on offer.

Six different scenarios from caring for a patient hurt in the traffic accident to watching a patient undergo surgery in a mock operating theatre are being held at the clinical skills department at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

Students from Sirius North, Sirius West and Archbishop Sentamu academies in Hull will take part in a similar event on Friday.

Simon Nearney, Director of Workforce at the trust, said:  “This is a great event enabling us to reach young people with a passion for health care.

“Whether they’re interested in direct patient care or supporting healthcare staff in other ways, the NHS has career pathways for everyone, not just those with academic qualifications.

“Our trust alone employs more than 8,500 people in over 320 different roles including apprenticeships and all of these posts require different levels of experience and qualification so there really is something for everyone.

“What’s important to us is that we attract, recruit and develop the right people to look after our growing population, and in return, the NHS can offer very successful and rewarding careers.”

Physics teacher Will Annison accompanied the Year 8 students from Headlands School and welcomed the opportunity to watch classroom learning put into practice during the day-long event.

He said: “We have set up our own health academy this year and we’re looking to get these guys enthused about careers in the NHS and fired up and excited about the possibilities.

“An event like this lets them see the opportunities available and the application of their learning is fantastic, especially in this environment.”

Chloe Middleton, 13, had come with her classmates from Withernsea School.

“I want to be a nurse because I like helping people,” she said. “I just want to see what it would really be like.”

A porter has won a prestigious award from a radio station after coming to the rescue of a patient in agony.

Martyn Morris scooped top prize for Best Customer Service in the Viking FM awards for helping a patient rushed to Hull Royal Infirmary.

The patient was suffering post-operative complications and his partner drove him to Hull Royal after learning they faced a 90-minute wait for an ambulance because of pressure on the service.

As they arrived outside the tower block, shift supervisor Martyn, 57, was alerted by help desk staff at Castle Hill who told him the patient needed a wheelchair.

“It was obvious the man was in a great deal of pain and he was doubled over in the wheelchair,” he said.

Arranging for the woman to park their car, he took the couple to the minors department and stayed with them while they checked in through the automated system.

However, he was so concerned by the patient’s condition that he spoke to staff in “majors”, the area treating the most seriously ill and injured patients, to ask for the man to be seen there.

The patient’s partner said: “It meant the absolute world to us that someone would not only be there with us but would care enough to not just leave us to wait our turn in the huge queue of people in a Friday night A&E.

“I know we would have been triaged but every second felt like an hour as my partner was in so much pain. Martyn took us through to majors and explained to the staff.

“My partner was seen quickly, given strong pain relief and was able to lie down. Martyn cared enough to find us after a while and pop his head in asking how he was doing.

“You can’t teach somebody to care that much, he’s just a natural.

“He is such a credit to the porter service. He’s one of life’s diamonds and I’ll never forget Martyn or his kindness that night.”

Martyn had already won a Moment of Magic award from Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust Trust after a patient’s partner contacted chief executive Chris Long to praise Martyn for the help he gave them.

A porter for 17 years, Martyn said he was surprised to receive, first the nomination, and then win the award at the Viking FM ceremony last week.

“We see patients on the wards and take them all over the place but it’s very rare that we receive feedback in the same way as the nursing staff do,” he said.

“I think, in all the years I’ve worked here, we’ve received two thank you cards so this meant a lot, not just to me but to the whole department.”

David May, the trust’s portering and postal services manager, said: “Portering is all about customer service and to receive an award in this category against other talented nominations in the local area is great news we should all be proud of.

“It also acknowledges the high standard of care, reassurance and dignity all trust staff provide to our patients and their families during their time in our hospitals.

“Well done, Martyn.”

A consultant who cared for Hull and East Yorkshire’s sick and premature babies for a quarter of a century has retired.

Dr Peter Pairaudeau, a consultant neonatologist, has just retired from Hull Women and Children’s Hospital after dedicating his career to helping seriously ill new-borns, babies and children.

Joining what was to become Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust in 1992, Dr Pairaudeau continued to develop the city’s neonatal service, carrying on the work of Dr Mike Lewins with whom he worked at Hedon Road Maternity Hospital.

Consultant Dr Chris Wood, the trust’s paediatric clinical director, said: “He is an extremely caring man and a very skilled and thoughtful clinician who was able to give great care and support to babies in the neonatal service and to his paediatric patients.

“There are many families whose children have survived thanks to the dedication and skill of Dr Pairaudeau.”

Closely involved in the planning and design of the new neonatal unit at Hull Women and Children’s Hospital which opened in 2003, Dr Pairaudeau helped to ensure the unit’s proximity to the labour delivery ward to provide new-born babies with immediate access to life-saving treatment.

He worked with colleagues to provide the most up-to-date and modern clinical environment, equipment and techniques to care for sick babies.

He supported consultant neonatologists Katherine Green and Joanna Preece, clinical lead, in the introduction to Hull of therapeutic hypothermia or “cooling” around 2009, where the temperatures of babies born after perinatal asphyxia are reduced.

Studies have shown the treatment can significantly reduce a baby’s chance of severe brain injury if treatment begins very soon after birth.

Dr Pairaudeau also supported consultant Hilary Klonin in the introduction of nitric oxide therapy and high frequency ventilation, used to treat premature babies with respiratory failure, shortly after maternity services moved from Hedon Road.

In 2016, Dr Pairaudeau was shortlisted for the outstanding clinical individual award in the trust’s Golden Hearts celebrations.

Nominated by his team, the citation read: “Peter has always shown himself to be an extremely dedicated and caring individual not only to his patients, who always come first, but to his colleagues as well.

“Peter is one of the most well-read and educated clinicians in the health group, if not the trust, always on the lookout for the latest development, the next guideline, the next study – all with the aim of improving the care provided  at HEY.

“He continues to champion children’s services and is always willing to push boundaries to develop services to ensure the provision of a high quality and safe service.”

On Dr Pairaudeau’s final afternoon, staff on the neonatal unit threw him a party, decorating the room with pink and blue balloons, streamers and butterflies to remember all the babies he had helped to treat.

Dr Wood said that Dr Pairaudeau will retain some contact with the service, holding regular outpatient clinics to support the handover of a service for the treatment of haemangiomas, or ‘strawberry’ birth marks, which he had introduced as another innovation to implement new treatments for this condition.

“His experience, knowledge and advice over the years have been invaluable to us and his retirement is a big loss to the neonatal unit,” he said.

“However, his legacy is this building and the work which goes on here.”