The Event: Canoe polo, also known as Kayak polo combines canoeing and ball handling skills with a contact team game, where tactics and positional play are as important as the speed and fitness of the individual athletes. Each team has five players on the pitch (and up to three substitutes), who compete to score in their opponents goal which is suspended two metres above the water. The ball can be thrown by hand, or flicked with the paddle to pass between players and shoot at the goal it is officially played as a 20-minute one consisting of two 10-minute halves.

The 17th London International Canoapolo Tournament is one of the most prestigious Canoepolo tournaments in Europe, with 48 teams who will take part on the 29-30 July in Bexleyheath. Our team is appropriately called "Northwick Park Team"; I am the captain of 8 people, with elite players from Italy and a Swedish and a German national player, all specifically coming to the London tournament to support our cause.

It will be hard to win the trophy but it is nothing compared to what the people I support have to go through!

Why: I work as a Consultant Interventional Radiologist in Northwick Park Hospital NW London, providing patients with treatments for Vascular Diseases.

Success in the provision of comprehensive Vascular and Interventional Radiology services can be measured in many ways, but most importantly are the patient experience and patient outcomes. Patients benefit from less time in Hospital, reduced complications and mortality rates and shorter waiting times for clinical appointments /surgery.

At London North West Healthcare HNS Trust, the Vascular Surgery and Interventional Radiology Services have been officially fully merged for the last year and a half. We are looking forward to providing services from a single purpose built location, in a few months our new Department will be ready on an entire floor at Northwick Park Hospital. The Trust will be investing 2 millions pound into this innovative project.

As staff we are trying to raise additional funds for further key equipment needed to enhance the experience of our patients.

Your valuable donations could go towards equipping our new Angio Theatre with the best quality patient warming system. The temperature in our theatre has to stay at 20º - 22ºC degrees to protect our machines. However, patients often comment that they are cold during procedures, which are often under local anaesthesia/sedation.

Studies also show that warming patients to maintain a core temperature of 36 ºC + helps improve outcomes by reducing the number of complications often associated with inadvertent hypothermia, including: higher mortality rates, longer hospital stays and an increased rate of wound infection.

Thank you for your support. To find out more about fundraising please visit

http://www.lnwh.nhs.uk/about-us/getting-involved/donations/lnwh-charitable-trust/