Intensive care trolley launched

This is an intensive care unit for children – on wheels.

It was the brainchild of paediatric intensive care doctor Stephen Marriage, who drew the design on a sheet of paper.

That was three years ago.

Now, thanks to a £50,000 donation from the Grand Appeal, his idea has become a reality.

Previously the doctors and nurses who went out to patients had to attach monitors, oxygen pumps and ventilators to an ordinary hospital trolley themselves.

Up to 18 critically ill children are brought to the hospital each month. And this new trolley will ensure their journeys are quicker and safer.

Dr Marriage said: "We have wanted this for a long time. I drew it on a piece of paper three years ago.

"If you are travelling in the back of an ambulance at 70 miles an hour and there was an accident, with a normal trolley everything could fall off, but this has been tested and meets European safety regulations.

Bristol Children's Hospital has the only paediatric intensive care unit in the region.

Anna Shepherd, deputy director of the Grand Appeal, said the trolley and equipment were purchased using several donations from families and from different events, including a skydive.