Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham Charity is off to London to meet with big business at the Responsible Partnerships Exhibition 2011 to spread the word about the work that it does to support the UK's military patients.

World class healthcare is provided at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital through the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine and any financial support for the military fund within the Hospital Charity is used to support military patients, the staff that treat them and the patients' families.

The support of our corporate partners is crucial to providing equipment and facilities over and above those provided by core National Health Service funding and we look forward to meeting with UK professionals responsible for developing and implementing their organisations' CSR agendas.

For more information about the charity please visit www.qehb.org or contact 0121 627 5753.

Notes to the editor:

1. Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham Charity is the official charity of Queen Elizabeth and Selly Oak hospitals. (www.qehb.org)
2. Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham Charity funds equipment, research and training which is over and above that which the NHS provides and aims to make a difference to the lives of patients, visitors and staff at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB).
3. The charity awards around £5 million in grants each year. In 2009-10, £1.5million was awarded to medical research projects at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the University of Birmingham which have direct patient benefit.
4. The charity also works with the wounded military patients that are treated at Selly Oak and Queen Elizabeth hospitals and is in the process of raising funds to create a Forces & Families Centre at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for patients and their families to spend time together in a non clinical environment.
5. UHB runs three hospitals in South Birmingham, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB), Selly Oak Hospital and the old Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
6. QEHB is Birmingham's first new acute hospital in 70 years.
7. The first patients moved in on 16 June 2010, and it will become fully operational by June 2012.
8. QEHB will be the largest single site teaching hospital in Europe, overtaking the St James in Leeds.
9. It has 1,213 beds, 30 theatres and the largest critical care unit in Europe with 100 beds.
10. UHB achieved Foundation Trust status on 1 July, 2004.
11. UHB has around 23,500 members and a Board of Governors.
12. The Trust's annual budget in 2009/10 was £496.2 million.
13. Staff of 6,900 people working across more than 40 disciplines.
14. The hospitals are a regional centre for trauma, burns, plastics, neurosciences and cancer.
15. UHB has the largest solid organ transplantation programme in Europe.
16. UHB has been rated 'excellent' for clinical care by the Care Quality Commission (2009/10).
17. UHB's infection rates reduced by over 60% (MRSA) and over 50% (C.diff) in 2009/10. Our senior managers and nurses 'walk the floor,' sometimes with members of the public, to make sure hygiene is of the highest standard.
18. UHB has some of the shortest waiting times in the UK and 98% of patients are seen and treated within four hours in A&E at UHB.
19. In 2009/10 UHB saw nearly half a million outpatients, 67,000 inpatients, 32,000 daycases, and 83,000 A&E attendances - a total of 681,496 patients treated.
20. UHB is the leading teaching hospital in the West Midlands, with strong links to the University of Birmingham.
21. UHB is the major provider of NHS Research and Development in the West Midlands.
22. Birmingham was the first designated Cancer Research UK Centre in the UK.
23. Birmingham is bidding to become one of the first centres in the UK to deliver a new cutting-edge cancer treatment call proton therapy.
24. UHB hosts the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM). UHB is also proud to host the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM). The RCDM, based at Selly Oak Hospital, provides dedicated training for defence personnel and is a focus for medical research. UHB also holds the contract for providing medical services to military personnel evacuated from overseas via the aero medical service. UHB is one of only a small number of hospitals that can provide the full range of medical specialties - trauma, burns, plastics, orthopaedics, neurosurgery, critical care - needed to treat the complex nature of conflict injuries, all under one roof.
25. The pioneering techniques in surgery and pain control that we have developed at Selly Oak whilst treating military patients are recognised worldwide. These techniques are now being used for civilian surgery in the UK and elsewhere.

Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham Charity

Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham Charity

Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham Charity exists to support the patients of the Queen Elizabeth and Selly Oak hospitals, including the UK’s military patients who are treated at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine. None of the donations we receive are used to replace core NHS funding as we provide equipment, facilities and research over and above core NHS services.

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