Birthday Celebrations

It was a summer of excitement for our Oxford Road Campus hospitals as we joined them in celebrating a whole 10 years of excellence in treatment, research and care. This culminated in September with the biggest celebration of all – our Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital 10^th Birthday Charity Ball!

We were delighted to welcome Sara Cox back as our host, fittingly a decade since she hosted our 2009 Ball. The event saw over 450 guests join us for an evening of entertainment at the Principal Hotel, but, more importantly, it was an opportunity for them to help us make a real difference.

And what a difference was made! Through ticket sales, raffles and an auction filled with money-can’t-buy prizes, the night raised a truly incredible £388,825! The auction boasted a top prize of an all-expenses paid week-long stay on Sir Richard Branson’s luxurious Necker Island, which sold for £45,000, only to be kindly donated back and resold for a further £40,000! Moments like this are what made this night a real milestone in our fundraising history.

The funds raised go directly towards our iMRI Scanner Appeal. This lifesaving appeal will revolutionise brain surgery at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.  Every year, thousands of children and young people from across the region come to our hospital for specialist neurological treatment.

Sadly, many will require complex brain surgery for a range of debilitating and even life threatening conditions including brain tumours, traumatic brain injuries, problems with the central nervous system and epilepsy.

Our specialist team of children’s neurosurgeons at the hospital rely on MRI scans taken before surgery to guide them during surgery.  Sometimes a child needs to be scanned during surgery, which means the risky process of moving a child to be scanned in another part of the building. Even then, it isn’t until another MRI scan is taken after surgery – perhaps days later – that our surgeons can see if the surgery was successful.

With the purchase of an intra-operative MRI (iMRI) and biplane angiography, surgeons will be able to do all of the scanning while the child is still on the operating table, in a safe, sterile environment. It’s this incredible advancement that every single guest who attended the ball will have helped make possible – we cannot thank them enough for their generosity.

A lot of effort and hard work went into making the Ball such a successful night. I’d like to thank everyone involved in helping us put such a memorable and special event together, including principal sponsor ANS and hospitality sponsor Peninsula, along with our Ball Committee and everyone who donated a prize. I think we can all agree it’s an event that will never be forgotten.

Sarah Naismith - Director of Charities