GUCH News
September 2021 Retirement of Dr Leisa Freeman
Dr Freeman, the founder of the GUCH service at NNUH has now retired from NHS practise after being the lead for this service 1993-2020. She remains an honorary Consultant Cardiologist at NNUH.
January 2021 New Imaging consultant – Dr Marina Hughes
Dr Hughes has now joined the ACHD team as Clinical Lead for the development of congenital and structural cardiac MRI in East Anglia, both at Norwich and Peterborough.
Covid-19 – Updated 8 September 2020
During the current pandemic, many patients are understandably concerned about their risk of severe complications should they contract COVID-19.
Please refer to the Somerville foundation advice that is always current and extremely helpful.
New Staff
Chloe Mercer is a new GUCH nurse starting in March 2020.
Gold Award
Some of you have probably seen on Social Media that our very own Toni Hardiman won the Gold Award at the CNO (Chief Nursing Officer for England) Awards recently (only the 15th Gold Nationally).
This is a massive achievement and credit to the service that Toni has provided to the complex group of GUCH patients that she cares for. Well done Toni, we are all very proud of you!
GUCH Information Morning – October 2019
We held our annual information morning for GUCH Patients on Saturday 12th October 2019. We had good attendance. Topics included medications management, preparing for heart surgery, presentations from the Norfolk and Waveney Wellbeing service and Deniz Paradot from Integrated Qigong (IQ) for Health. Please email the GUCH nurses if you would like copies of their presentations. As usual our amazing patient stories were well received:
“…brilliant, brave, inspiring, helpful, very well told, very informative…”
Patient Reported Experience Measures – July/August 2018
Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMs) are questionnaires that patients are asked to complete to assess how they feel, from their own experience and perspective. These have helped our GUCH team decide what care is best for you and help us plan future service developments.
Of the 53 GUCH patients we gave questionnaires to, 24 responded:
- 100% considered quality of their consultation with their GUCH consultant to be either excellent or good.
- 100% felt questions were answered by their GUCH specialist nurse in a way they understood.
- 100% were likely or extremely likely to recommend this hospital to friends and family.
- We asked if you had a named cardiac nurse, 91% said you did. We want to ensure all of you have a named nurse – next time you come to clinic we will highlight on our contact card your named nurse.
- 100% felt treated like an individual, but this is something we are constantly working to improve for you.
“Always friendly and helpful, quick to react when telephoned with problem, excellent service”
“First visit and found treatment excellent”
Our GUCH supporters
Libby, a daughter of one of our patients has just raised over £800 for the Norfolk Heart Trust following her Norwich Forum Library abseil on the 22nd July 2019.
A man whose wife attended our pulmonary hypertension service sadly died recently. He came to see us and presented to Dr Head and the team cheques totalling £400, contributed by her friends and family.
We thank all those who kindly donate to the Norfolk Heart Trust and GUCH funds throughout the year.