A huge thank you to everyone who took part in Run 5.30 to raise money for Rockinghorse. We hugely appreciate your fantastic support and hope you had a wonderful morning.

Rockinghorse are the official fundraising arm of the Royal Alexandra Children’s hospital and proud supporters of the Trevor Mann Baby Unit in Brighton and the Special Care Baby Unit in Haywards Heath. We have been supporting sick children in Sussex for over 50 years, raising funds for life-saving equipment and projects to help make a child’s stay in hospital a little brighter.

We recently launched our summer appeal to support the High Dependency Unit at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in Brighton. Back in 2014, we raised over £8,000 to provide the unit at the Royal Alex with ventilators and the impact on the critical care provided for patients was immediate. Staff were delighted with the results, and the exceptional medical treatment they were now able to give to the hospital’s most poorly children. Unfortunately the reality is that the
number of patients needing intensive care is increasing every year. The staff on HDU are facing huge pressures and with the NHS stretched to near crisis point, upgrading and purchasing new equipment is simply not possible through government funding.

The HDU team have asked us to fundraise for further ventilators to ensure EVERY child who needs non-invasive ventilation will receive the appropriate treatment without delay. The ventilators are used to treat over 130 children and babies a year, and most of these patients are under three years of age and facing a prolonged hospital stay. In addition to this, disabled children often need respiratory support throughout their multiple admissions, and several long-term patients require constant ventilation on the ward. This can create a stressful
environment for staff who are forced to juggle patient priority against equipment resource. Thanks to your amazing support through Run 5.30, we can continue our work for young patients who rely on services at the Royal Alex. 

We hope you enjoyed it and we look forward to seeing you all in 2019!