Barnsley’s Tiny Hearts Appeal

So today we’re finally launching our Tiny Hearts Appeal which aims to raise £1 million over the next two years to help support the development of a brand new Special Care Baby Unit here at the hospital (no pressure).

We’ve had the development of this capital appeal in the pipeline for a while now and over the next few weeks we’ll be sharing some very exciting news and launching various fundraising initiatives, so watch this space! For now, I’m going to tell you all about our Tiny Hearts Appeal and how you can get involved because it really is an important and worthwhile cause and we need all the help we can get.

Barnsley Hospital’s Special Care Baby Unit (or SCBU) is often described as excellent and the staff couldn’t be praised more but, despite this, the unit does need to be updated so that staff can continue this excellent standard of care. The new unit will feature state-of-the-art equipment and will be focused around providing a family-orientated environment for all patients and their families who have to stay here at such a difficult time.

Just last year, the unit cared for 300 families, providing specialist care to babies born from 27 weeks. When babies are born so early, their tiny bodies are not developed enough to cope with the outside world, making the vulnerable and in need of extra help. The new unit is centred around allowing these babies to fully develop whilst providing parents with essential bonding time.

Our Tiny Hearts Appeal is focused around engaging with the Barnsley community, getting people involved with the appeal and helping them to develop their own fundraising ideas. We’ll be providing you with some great fundraising initiatives and events but will be encouraging you to be as creative as possible with your ideas.

One of the great ways for you to raise money for the Tiny Hearts Appeal is through our Great Barnsley Bake Off campaign whereby you can hold your own mini Bake Off competition, raise sponsorship and sell your cakes off in a bake sale! If you are interested in taking part, we have some excellent Bake Off packs that we can send out.

For us to reach our £1 million target we need to keep spreading the word about the Tiny Hearts Appeal and encouraging the fantastic people of Barnsley to work together and raise some money f    or a wonderful cause! We have some fundraising packs ready to send out which will tell you everything you need to know about the appeal.

If you have any great ideas that you’d like to share with use, please do get in touch with either tanyaoates@nhs.net or katiecartwright@nhs.net or alternatively call 01226 431916.