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A £300,000 appeal has been launched to buy equipment for the breast unit at Warwick Hospital, so patients no longer have to go to Coventry for one stage of their treatment. The appeal is run by SWFT Charity, the charity of South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital on Lakin Road.
What the money would pay for
When breast imaging finds an area that needs surgery, a thin wire is often placed to mark exactly where it is, so the surgeon can find it during the operation. At the moment, patients from Warwick who need this have to travel to University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire to have the wire put in, then come back to Warwick Hospital for their surgery.
The charity wants to fund the equipment to do wire insertion in the hospital’s Helen Clark Suite, the breast care unit. That would cut out the extra hospital journey and keep patients with the same team throughout, which the charity says can ease stress at an already difficult time.
The same equipment would also let the unit carry out mammography-guided biopsies in Warwick, where a sample is taken from a suspicious area so doctors can plan the next step of care.
How far the appeal has got
The appeal has only just started. On 29 October its fundraising page showed £510 raised from seven donors, less than 1% of the £300,000 target. The charity hasn’t said when it hopes to reach the target or when the equipment could be in use.
SWFT Charity pays for extras above core NHS funding across the trust’s hospitals and community services. Donations can be made, or a fundraiser started, on the SWFT Charity Breast Care Appeal page.
Warwick Hospital has been expanding its services this autumn: earlier this month we reported that plans for a new medical day case unit were approved. For more local stories, see our Warwick news page.
