My name is Harrison and I am a sixth form student at the Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe.

I also volunteer to work in the Community Pharmacy in Hughenden Valley.

I have learnt that not all of the services that patients need are provided by the NHS. In particular, if patients have pain in their legs, then they often need to have a scan to check if it’s safe for them to have special bandages that we supply from the pharmacy to help with the pain.

Presently the scans are done in hospital and some patients have had to wait for months for an appointment. Patients can also book to have the scans done at their GP surgery, but because it takes up five nurse appointments at once and needs two nurses it can be difficult to find an appointment gap long enough, and when the scans are done it makes it very hard for other patients to get appointments to see the nurse.

I have discovered that there is a machine which makes it possible for the scans to be done in the GP surgery in just one nurse appointment, but the machines are not provided by the NHS.

The cost of the machine, called a “Dopplex Ability”, is just under £2700 which is a lot of money but not so much to make it impossible to raise the money.

You can read more about the device here:

http://www.huntleigh-diagnostics.com/store/vascular-assessment/assessment-by-dopplex/ability-abi-system

With this machine, patients that need the scan will be scanned more quickly allowing pain control and other treatment more quickly.

The appointments that they would have used in hospital, will become available for other patients to use and every scan done with this new machine, frees up FIVE nurse appointments that are used with the current standard machine.

Every single pound donated will count toward the cost of the machine.

Thank you.