Photo: Professor Dame Janet Beer and the LHCH Team launch the new mobile unit
University of Liverpool Vice-Chancellor Professor Dame Janet Beer recently launched a new Mobile Spirometry Unit at the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital (LHCH). The mobile unit will be used by the LHCH Respiratory Team to provide a comprehensive service for patients with a range of respiratory conditions both in the hospital and in the local community – caring for over 40,000 people each year.
The mobile unit has been set up in response to the current health emergency and the LHCH Respiratory Team’s programme that is the first of its kind in the UK.
Reaching out to the community
Jennifer Furlong, Advanced Clinical Physiologist and Deputy Manager of Respiratory Diagnostics, said: “For those of us working in respiratory medicine the Covid-19 pandemic has meant facing many difficulties in trying to treat patients with lung disease. Liverpool Heart and Chest has worked unceasingly to ensure all those that needed access were provided with help. This new unit gives us the additional facilities to allow us to do this as well as enabling us to deal with increasing demand – reaching out into the community.’”
Among many of its uses, the unit will take diagnostic testing out into the community targeting those most at risk of health inequality and most in need of our support in the poorest boroughs of Merseyside. It expands the services they are offering including targeted lung health checks and cancer screening. Longer term they hope it will also template for other respiratory teams across the UK who are also facing the same problems in this post-COVID era.
Hard work and ingenuity
Professor Dame Janet Beer, said, ‘‘It was an honour to launch the new mobile unit at the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital which will provide a life changing service for the local community. I am proud of our partnership and this unit is testament to the hard work and ingenuity of its staff who are also training the medical professionals of the future.’.’
Jane Tomkinson OBE, Chief Executive Officer of the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, said: “This wonderful new facility shows how partners working together can bring enormous benefits to our patients and the wider community in Liverpool. Together, Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital and the University of Liverpool, are delighted to be able to deliver this expanded service to meet the needs of the many patients who require access to respiratory diagnostics.”
The University and LHCH would like to thank the Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust whose gift made this unit possible.