Children’s Heart Surgery Fund’s lottery continues to go from strength to strength, but we always need new members.

For £1 a week, you have a chance of winning £100, every week! Because our lottery is smaller than most existing lotteries, there are more chances of being the lucky winner.

With your help, we are able to support children and adults with congenital heart disease across Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.

Here’s some of your feedback:

Children’s Heart Surgery Fund is a charity close to me. The work they do to support families and people with congenital heart disease is fantastic. For just £1 a week, the chance of winning £100 is amazing. I strongly encourage people to join up!

I was surprised when I won the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund lottery as I never win anything. We were super excited to be able to shop for garden bits. Our garden had been unloved since we moved in so we could now show it some attention.

I was very surprised to be an early winner in the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund lottery. I am very impressed by the hard work put in by your team. I treated myself and my four grandchildren to a meal and icecream during the summer holidays and am happy to continue with the lottery for such a worthwhile cause.

Our daughter had open heart surgery at 5 months old and we felt the lottery was a way of giving money to an amazing charity with the chance to win some cash. With the money we bought a picnic hamper and a baby walker!

Children’s Heart Surgery Fund has given financial support to a training project for Yorkshire sonographers.

The training provides sonographers with the tools to better detect potential heart defects in babies.

217 sonographers across the LGI and wider Yorkshire region have benefitted from this training to date.

We’re very pleased to have given £6,000 to this valuable project, organised by Tiny Tickers, which has run since July 2015.

It’s been calculated that 81% of the 64,000 births in the region every year will receive a higher standard of cardiac screening at the 20-week fetal anomaly scan as a result.

One in every 125 babies is born with a heart condition.

This means over 414 babies born with a serious heart condition in Yorkshire and the Humber this year will have a greater chance of their heart defect being detected.

When heart defects are detected during pregnancy, babies get treatment from the first possible moment.

Prenatal detection also means that parents get the support they need to prepare them for the future.

Tiny Tickers Head of Fundraising Harriet Roberts said:

We would like to thank the Big Lottery Fund, Children’s Heart Surgery Fund and Sovereign Healthcare Charitable Trust for their support. Together we have been able to provide a better start for over 400 hearts in Yorkshire and the Humber this year alone. Almost 220 sonographers are now more skilled and confident in detecting a heart anomaly in the region, and we believe it will have a great impact on families and babies across the region for many years to come.

A new resource has launched to help parents and families interpret the statistics for survival after children’s heart surgery.

The content, navigation, language and look of the website

was developed by listening and talking to users and parents.

The site shows web visitors that hospitals shouldn’t be ranked by their survival rates alone.

High performing hospitals can have lower survival rates simply because they are taking on the most complex cases.

Website researchers have used a “risk adjustment method” to calculate a predicted range of survival for each hospital.

This calculation takes into account the complexity of each individual child’s medical condition and surgery.

There’s more information in a

on the University of Cambridge website.

And you can also read about the website and its development in

.

This introduction video to

gives an overview of the campaign to raise £500,000 towards a revolutionary children’s heart theatre, and what it means for the LGI and those touched by congenital heart disease.

It includes interviews with Consultant Children’s Cardiologist John Thompson, and families of congenital heart patients.

Give yourself a few moments to watch it and take in the tremendous benefits this new theatre would bring.

Watch video

Here’s a summary of the media and online coverage for

in case you missed anything!

The Yorkshire Evening Post and Yorkshire Post both ran articles on 19th May to summarise the reasons behind the campaign and publicise its launch.

Here’s the online variant of the printed articles – it reads the same across

.

The Yorkshire Evening Post also ran a “

” to show their support.

Leeds Rhinos pledged their support through their

and the

. We also had tweets and social media shares from players including

.

also come along to the event, and bowled us over with his generous support and social media shares.

reports on the Keeping the Beat campaign, a quote from Sharon Coyle, pictures of Sharon and Christian on the ward and directs readers to CHSF.org.uk.

You can hear audio from the Stray FM radio interview with parent

and

.

Whilst we’re still acquiring the footage from the BBC Look North feature, you can watch our appearance on

with Cardiologist Elspeth Brown, CHSF CEO Sharon Coyle, patient Colin Clewes and parent Christian Carroll.

Our

,

and

channels have been buzzing with likes, shares and comments so feel free to add to the discussion.

We’d welcome any support you can offer for our

, so if you can help spread awareness, please send a message to

.

CHSF associates and supporters came together to officially launch the

at the Leeds Club on 19th May 2016.

From politicians to sportsmen, clinicians to trustees, it proved a galvanizing evening with a number of powerful and uniting speeches.

The audience comprised of some of the “heart families” – those whose children have been affected by congenital heart problems. This added context to the collective spirit and we’re very grateful for their attendance.

It also showcased a number of specially commissioned “heart hero” photos by

of adult congenital patients, who also attended the event.

Colin Clewes, an Adult Congenital Heart patient himself, spoke very candidly about the importance of the heart unit and how he wouldn’t be here without it. His company,

, kindly printed out the lifesize heart heroes portraits for us free of charge and provided other marketing materials.

Children’s Heart Surgery Fund works directly with those benefitting from its output on a daily basis. I’ve never experienced this close relationship between employee and subject in the charity sector, and it’s is such a motivating factor in our work.

From CHSF CEO Sharon Coyle’s introductory speech through to Gary Hetherington’s final keynote talk on the shared team ethics of Leeds Rhinos, the tone was one of support, positivity and a shared sense of resilience in the face of hard times.

Carin Van Doorn, Head of Congenital Cardiac Surgery, and Kevin Watterson, retired surgeon and CHSF chairman, gave their learned views on the undoubted potential of the new hybrid theatre. The theatre will set up Leeds as one of the leading lights in European cardiac treatment.

Christian and Freya Carroll

Finally, parents Christian and Freya Carroll presented CHSF with a cheque for £31,000 which they’ve raised themselves for Keeping the Beat through hosting a charity ball.

This is to give back to the heart unit for the major surgery, support and treatment of their son Albie.

To hear more about Albie’s story, you can

.

A memorable evening and one which paves the way for the success of this tremendous campaign.