Health & Wellbeing

Rick Stein, Tom Kitchin and Deliciously Ella are amongst the celebrity chefs to come together to encourage the nation to bake their favourite cake for Bowel Cancer UK’s fundraising campaign Be a Star, Bake a Cake.  This year Bowel Cancer UK, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, is hoping more people than ever will hold a bake sale during Bowel Cancer Awareness Month in April and raise as much money as possible to help fund vital research and lifesaving work to stop bowel cancer.

Walkers who took part in Alzheimer’s Society’s Memory Walk at Cannon Hill Park in the autumn raised £332,972, the charity has revealed. 5000 people took part in the charity’s walk at the park on Sunday 11 September 2016, making it one of the biggest in the history of Alzheimer’s Society’s Memory Walks. Walkers from across the city tackled a scenic route around the park on a sunny Sunday in September. The charity had set the target fundraising figure of £280,000.

Struggling with your New Year's resolutions or thinking about getting fit for the summer? SHA Wellness Clinic have a comprehensive anti-smoking programme which will help you quit smoking, avoid cravings and manage stressful situations that can lead to relapse. A personalised programme is created to target the nicotine addiction profile of each guest, including pioneering treatments and wellness consultations with world renowned specialists and doctors.

A Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) cancer patient is urging people to sign up for the pioneering 100,000 Genomes Project. Toby Knight had surgery for colorectal cancer at QEHB in January 2014, followed by chemotherapy, and is now all clear of the disease. But before his operation he gave permission for a tumour sample to be kept for research – which has now led to him signing up to the ground-breaking NHS England initiative, the first of its kind in the world.

46-year-old Jason Green will ride the 75mile ‘Sunrise Express’ later this month to raise funds in support of his relative, 12-year-old Harry Price. Football mad Harry was diagnosed with Philadelphia positive Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia in October 2016 and is currently undergoing intensive and gruelling chemotherapy treatment for a condition that is more common in adults than children. Jason, an I.T. Infrastructure Engineer from Longbridge aims to raise £4,000 for blood cancer charity Cure Leukaemia to support the charity’s £1m Centre Appeal in 2017.

A leading Birmingham scientist has been awarded a grant worth almost £240,000 by research charity Breast Cancer Now to conduct pioneering research into a potential new role of BRCA1 mutations in the development of breast cancer. Faults in the ‘breast cancer gene’ BRCA1 – which provides instructions for cells to make the BRCA1 protein – can dramatically increase a person’s risk of developing breast cancer. Around 1 in 20 breast cancers develop as a result of a mutation in BRCA1 or its sister gene BRCA2, accounting for around 2,500 new cases of breast cancer each year in the UK.

An Aircraft Engineer who served in the Royal Airforce during the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts will join over one thousand others and cycle 100 miles in one day at Velo Birmingham, in aid of patients at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. Jonathan Perks, a 42 year-old father of four, spent eight years as a Royal Airforce Engineer, where he was involved in preparing C130 Hercules – the workhorse of the RAF’s Air Transport, responsible for carrying troops, including flying those injured in conflict to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, where the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine is based – for medical evacuations during the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Birmingham-based researchers have enlisted the expertise of a Midlands Air Ambulance Charity (MAAC) HEMS paramedic to help carry out a ground breaking study. Jim Hancox has been drafted into a NIHR Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre (SRMRC) team which is investigating the effectiveness of giving patients blood products after a major injury before reaching hospital.

Sandwell’s social care boss has praised the round-the-clock efforts of health and council staff working hard to keep hospital beds available during the busy winter period. Councillor Ann Shackleton visited Sandwell Hospital in West Bromwich to see first-hand how older people are cared for, assessed and discharged. She toured the Older Persons’ Assessment Unit and also met the Joint Discharge Team, speaking to health and social care workers as well as a consultant and a patient.

Birmingham mother Jackie Watkins lived the first 25 years of her life not knowing why she was constantly ill. As a child and young woman she was repeatedly in and out of hospital with a variety of serious ailments which took their toll on both her and her family – but no-one could tell them why. Jackie, of Great Barr, was finally diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis - but not before her mother had a breakdown brought on by all the worry.

A Wednesbury dad whose daughter received major spinal surgery at Birmingham Children’s Hospital will be taking to the saddle this September for the hospital charity’s first-ever London to Paris cycling challenge. Matthew Vipond, father to 10-year-old Libby, is among 30 others who have already set the wheels in motion and registered to take part in this iconic 300-mile event taking place from Wednesday 6 to Sunday 10 September.

Work is well underway on a £2m state-of-the-art gym development on Newtown Middleway, off the Aston Expressway close to the Matalan / Dartmouth Circle roundabout. JD Gyms, part of JD Sports Fashion group, is transforming the 26,000sq ft. Alcora Building into a three floor fitness facility, due to open this March. Originally destined to be an office complex, JD Gyms obtained planning permission to give the building a new lease of life as a gym last Autumn.

A recruitment consultant from Birmingham is taking on the ultimate cycling challenge to raise money for patients at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) after her friend, Leanne Maxwell, died in 2015 following treatment for an aggressive brain tumour. Sarah Pugh, 26, has signed up to take on Velo Birmingham, a 100-mile, closed-road bike ride coming to the second city for the first time in September 2017.

Public Health chiefs in Wolverhampton are reminding unvaccinated first year university students to make sure they get immunised against meningococcal disease. The appeal comes as Public Health England (PHE) issues updated advice to universities on reducing the spread of this deadly infection, which causes meningitis and septicaemia, and comes after figures show that less than a third of all young people leaving school or college last summer had been immunised with the Men ACWY vaccine by the end of October.

University of Wolverhampton students and staff have signed up to a city-wide campaign to raise awareness of the growing threat of antibiotic resistance. Public Health England (PHE) leads the co-ordination of Antibiotic Awareness activities in England in collaboration with the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) of the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department of Health.