The Beach Appeal - UHD Charity

With a fundraising target of £1.5million, The BEACH Appeal is one of our biggest ever fundraising initiatives.

a women taking an interview in a hospital

We are calling everybody across Dorset and the surrounding areas to help us fund a variety of additional items that will ensure the new BEACH building at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital has everything it needs to take our healthcare into the future – above and beyond what the NHS will fund.

Over £500million has already been invested to reconfigure the services at University Hospitals Dorset to improve the way care is provided for the hundreds of thousands of patients that depend on our hospitals each year.

This new six-storey building is the size of 115 tennis courts and known as the ‘BEACH’ for Birth, Emergency, Critical Care and Children’s Health Department. This building will provide new purpose-built maternity and children’s units, an improved major emergency department and one of the biggest critical care units in the country.

Your donation could contribute to a range of projects including:

We could help children experience joy and a break away from their clinical areas by raising funds for new indoor and outdoor play areas at the heart of the new Children’s Health Department.
We could provide a tranquil outdoor space for patients, visitors and staff caring for those that are critically unwell by raising funds for new wellbeing gardens adjacent to the Critical Care Unit.
We could provide mood lighting and bubble lamps for our maternity department to create a calm and relaxed environment and deliver enhanced sensory experiences for the birthing person.
We could fund four specially designed rooms that provide a comforting space for people with additional mental health needs within our Emergency Department.
We could provide sleep pods for Junior Doctors to get rest during their shifts.
We could provide technology for our brand-new classroom to improve accessibility and continuity of education for our young patients.

Thanks to generous donations across the local community, we are pleased to share we have raised an incredible £300k towards our target so far. (September 2024)

Together we can make long-lasting differences to every patient, staff member and hospital visitor to come through the doors of this brand-new building.

Hear more from some of our clinical leads about the difference these items will mean to them on the ground.

a man who works at a charity taking his picture

Having two state-of-the-art CT scanners right in the heart of the new Emergency Department will enable us to perform the right scan without delays on patients in need of rapid diagnostics. The design of this new facility is revolutionary and based entirely around the concept of patient flow to best serve the demands of all patients admitted to the hospital. Having the additional CT scanner allows us to do so much more for our patients. It will also reduce the demands on our porters as the scans can be done right away in the Emergency Department.

Matthew Benbow – CT & MRI Superintendent radiographer

We would like to make this an accessible place which meets the needs of everyone involved in Critical Care. Our team is very excited to have this opportunity to work in a unit which has been purpose-built to care for patients and relatives during a very stressful time for them. A small garden to take patients outside to support their recovery and rehabilitation would be invaluable and to provide relatives with a space to reflect near their loved one will make such a difference. Having a place in reach for staff to relax on their breaks in the fresh air is also very restorative.

Ruth Dodgson – Matron for Critical Care

a women who works at a charity taking her picture

I visited my dad in Critical Care and the only place to sit nearby looks like the ‘bad news room’ and during that difficult time when you’re looking for hope and to stay strong for a loved one, you need a space to breathe and stay calm. Outside space nearby would have helped my mindset at the time and aided some of those memories.

ANONYMOUS, PREVIOUS PATIENT FAMILY MEMBER

If you choose to donate today, we can together ensure our BEACH building is one-of-a-kind.

Will you donate to The BEACH Appeal so that we can be there for you and your family more than ever before?

DOWNLOAD

If you would prefer to fundraise for The BEACH Appeal or would like more information on the future of our hospitals and how together with our NHS colleagues, you will be helping to transform healthcare across Dorset, please download the booklet or go to our fundraising page.