Author: sarah.rastrick@act4addenbrookes.org.uk

Addenbrooke’s has become the first NHS hospital to use thermal ablation (hot needle treatment) to destroy life-threatening tumours in one go, including hard-to-reach cancers.

Through the generosity of ACT supporters, we were able to buy the £250,000 thermal ablation machine following a two-year pilot involving 50 patients with liver cancer. Less than half of those treated during the pilot needed further treatment. The hospital is now looking at how this treatment can be expanded to kidney and other cancer patients.

Combining the precision of AI and thermal ablation means hard-to-reach or very small tumours can be more easily and effectively treated without the need for repeat treatments.

Hear more below from Consultant radiologist Nadeem Shaida about how this incredible machine will save the lives of more people with cancer.

Read an interview with Dr Nadeem Shaida on the amazing cascination machine on pages 4 and 5 of our latest Impact magazine.

Read the coverage of the cascination machine on the BBC website.

As part of Biodiversity Action Week at Addenbrooke’s, hospital staff and volunteers planted nectar-rich flowers into 10 pre-filled planters, funded by ACT supporters, providing colourful, nature-friendly spaces around the hospital campus for all.

These beautiful planters have turned drab, concrete spaces into a more appealing place to be as well as given nature a helping hand.

Click here to find out more about the hospital’s Green Plan to reduce its carbon footprint and increase biodiversity.

A new wayfinding app ‘CUH Directions’ funded by hospital supporters has been launched.

Now patients, families and visitors to Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie will be able to easily find their way around the hospital site, meaning less worry and stress getting to and from appointments.

The app was developed with the help of patient feedback and maps a route of images and text instructions when you provide a start and end point.

ACT CEO, Shelly Thake, said: “The charity is delighted to help launch the new CUH Directions app which was kindly funded by ACT supporters. Patients coming to the hospital, including those who are sight impaired or have learning disabilities, will now be able to find their way to appointments and wards from car parks and the bus station more easily.”

Just visit the App Store or Google Play Store to download and install the app on on your device.

You can read more about the CUH Directions app on the hospital website.

Thirty amazing staff from across the Rosie Hospital recently signed up to support Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust by taking on Snowdon – the highest mountain in Wales. 

The team started their climb at 01.30 on 7 May, and successfully reached the summit to watch the most magnificent sunset – just look at those views!

The team raised over £4500 for ACT! Well done Team Rosie!

Could you do something to support Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie Hospitals?

Yesterday, 5,000 bunches of cheerful daffodils, kindly supported by Scotsdales Nursery & Garden Centre Ltd and ACT, were handed out to Addenbrooke’s staff.

Volunteer teams from ACT and hospital supporters, Cambridge Commodities, were on hand to brighten people’s day and to say a huge thanks for all they do.

We loved seeing all the smiles as staff arrived or left their shifts. Who doesn’t like to receive a beautiful bunch of blooms?

On Sunday 5 March 2023, 27 amazing runners took part in the TTP Cambridge Half Marathon to support Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie hospitals.

Supporters, patients, friends and family came together to form our group of dedicated #TeamAddenbrookes runners and through their fundraising efforts have so far raised over £18,000!

Along with our amazing supporters, six hospital staff members also took on the iconic 13.1 miles in support of their hospital, find out more about them and their fundraising stories below;

Pedro Silva – Pedro Silva is fundraising for Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (justgiving.com)

Camille Hudon – Camille Hudon is fundraising for Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (justgiving.com)

Damiano Barone – Damiano Giuseppe Barone is fundraising for Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (justgiving.com)

Jonathan Littlewood – Jonathan Littlewood is fundraising for Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (justgiving.com)

Htar Htar – Htar Htar Hlaing is fundraising for Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (justgiving.com)

Sarju Mehta – Sarju Mehta is fundraising for Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (justgiving.com)

A huge ‘well done’ to all our runners and a big THANK YOU to everyone who cheered them on or made a donation, this amazing amount of money will help to make our hospitals even better!

If you are interested in taking part in a fundraising event for #TeamAddenbrookes, we’d love to hear from you. Visit our website for more info or contact the team at fundraising@act4addenbrookes.org.uk

3 August 2022

Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust launched its Surgical Robot Appeal back in April 2021. We have now almost reached our £1.5m target with just £151,950 to go! We are calling all our supporters to please help us over the finish line. What could YOU do to support your hospital?

How you can help
You don’t have to be a marathon runner or a member of the Tour de France cycling team to join in with our robot fundraising. We’ve had people taking on all sorts of challenges for us including holding toy sales, learning Welsh for 1000 hours, and even selling cakes out of a canoe to raise funds! What could YOU do?

Here are 10 fundraising ideas:

1. Host a dinner party. This could be as simple or elaborate as you like. Invite your friends over for a home-cooked meal. Ask guests to donate what they’d spend on eating out to the Robot Appeal.
2. Staying on the foodie theme, get a group of friends together and create your own version of Come Dine With Me. Take it in turns to create your best dishes, then rate each other’s meals and compete for the title of ‘host with the most.’
3. Donate your birthday. Instead of asking for gifts, ask your friends and family to give a donation instead. Facebook makes it super easy for you to use your birthday to raise money for a cause that’s important to you.
4. Put your creativity to good use and get crafty. If you’re great at creating all things homemade and can knit, sew, paint, build or make jam, why not sell your wares?
5. If music’s more your thing and you’re feeling ambitious, you could organise a mini-concert, recital or jamming session and sell tickets to your music-loving friends.
6. Hold a dress down day at work in return for a donation, or why not give Metal Mickey a run for his money and dress up as a robot?
7. A quiz is always good fun. You could hold a quotes quiz by collecting lots of movie quotes and song lyrics – then test your workmates. For a price, of course. And perhaps a prize.
8. Show off your best bakes. Cake sales always go down well in the workplace, at school and, well anywhere really.
9. Guess the number of sweets in a jar, peas in a bag, footballs in a car etc. The list is endless!
10. Give a good old-fashioned donation at helpyourhospital.co.uk/robot 

Ways some of our fundraisers have risen to the challenge

1000 challengers:

• It costs about £1,000 per patient to provide robot-assisted surgery and we launched our 1000 challenge to see how creative our supporters could get! We were delighted to receive details of many different types of challenges from 82-year-old Dot who aimed to walk 10,000 steps a day and ended up averaging 14,000 steps a day, to Jan who knitted and crafted 1000 wonderful creations in 1000 minutes and spent 1000 minutes learning Welsh, in honour of her Welsh transplant donor.
• Personal Trainer Tariq Mansell challenged himself to 1000 minutes of exercise in his gym after a close friend needed brain surgery to remove a tumour. He raised £3,460 for the surgical robot.

Sporting challenges:

• Eight-year-old Isla who has a rare genetic condition embarked on an epic 46-mile trike challenge to raise money for Addenbrooke’s. Inspired by learning about Egypt at school, she travelled the equivalent 46 miles it would take to trike through the city of Cairo to the pyramids of Giza, raising more than an incredible £10,000 in the process.
• At the beginning of lockdown, football fan Imogen (then aged 10) set the challenge of completing 7.1 million keepie uppies, one for every key worker in the country. She smashed her target and ended up raising an incredible £20,000 for several charities including ACT.
• CUH surgeon Atanu Pal ran the virtual London Marathon spelling out the word ‘Robot’ with his route.
• During Social Action Week from 6 – 10 June, students from Hills Road Sixth Form College took on several challenges to raise funds for the hospital. One group held a bake sale out of a canoe! They canoed about eight miles all the way from Stourbridge common to Grantchester, selling their homemade baked goods along the way.

If you would like to fundraise to help us reach our Robot Appeal target, please email fundraising@act4addenbrookes.org.uk to let us know your plans. You can find out more or donate at helpyourhospital.co.uk/robot