Photos: LSI Architects

The £5m Clinical Imaging and Research Centre at the hospital will house two brand new scanners – CT and MRI – improving the scanning capacity for hospital patients.

This weekend, a local clinic will be raising money for the unit, by offering cut-price therapy sessions at The Forum.

Almost 6,000 babies were born at the N&N in 2012, up from 4,855 in 2003/4. In response, the hospital opened a new midwifery-led birthing unit in August 2011 to cater for 4 more pregnant women at a time on Blakeney Ward.

The idea of the new unit is to allow women with straightforward births to have a natural delivery in a more homely and less medical setting. The hospital provides a midwife service from its 12-bed delivery suite, and a home birth service from the hospital’s community midwives.

Baby Hattie Rose was born in the unit in January making her the 500th baby born there. Mum Aisha Heward, who is a bar-maid in Norwich, said: “It’s such a lovely tranquil unit, it really helped my to relax and be at ease. The whole positive experience of having both my children at the NNUH has led me to want to train as a midwife when my children are older.”

This Saturday (4th February 2012), The Orange Grove Clinic in Norwich will be raising money for the unit. They’ll offer a range of 15 minute taster sessions at The Forum including massage, reflexology and acupuncture for £5, with all money going towards buying more equipment for the unit.

Some UEA students, who had bought annual bus passes, returned on the first day of this term to find their route had been withdrawn.

Simon Wright wants to hear people’s experiences and concerns ahead of the meeting.

“Many passengers have been in touch with me about their concerns. I want to encourage anyone who is affected to get in touch so I can present First with clear evidence of the impact of these changes on my constituents,” said Mr Wright.

The meeting comes as First announced changes to its services across Norwich including the 21/22 which will no longer stop at the University of East Anglia. In Lakenham & Tuckswood the number 17/17a has also changed its route.

Tash Ross, Community and Student Rights Officer at the Union commented: “This is really worrying. There seems to have been little thought of the students who use the service, especially given that many of them will have bought a yearlong pass expecting to be able to use the services for all of the academic year. We call on First Bus to review their decision, and consult with students who use the service, especially those who have already paid for their bus pass for the year.”

Dawn Dewar, UEA’s Transport Co-ordinator said: “The university encourages staff and students to use public transport in preference to cars wherever possible, but the services offered by First Buses are run on commercial grounds and decisions on which routes to operate rest with them.”

Nigel Barrett, Regional Managing Director, for First South East & Midlands has responded to criticism saying: “An extensive evaluation of the 21/22 service [..] was undertaken and showed that very few passengers were being carried between the University and the N&N Hospital. During these times of austerity, the UK bus industry continues to fight rising fuel and insurance costs, changes to concessionary fares reimbursement procedures, as well as reductions in fuel duty rebate and council funding.  We have to ensure that all of our routes are being fully utilised.”

The bus company has agreed to hold a UEA focus group inside 3 months to review the situation and are looking to create a similar group with staff and members of the N&N adding: “Our recent research has also indicated that there was customer demand at peak times between the Bowthorpe area and the University, and we have therefore introduced new ‘circular’ 40 Service between these points.  We expect that this will be adjusted in time to ensure that it continues to meet the needs of the UEA, using the feedback from the focus groups and customer service centre.”

They have also agreed to refund any passengers who bought an annual ticket who are no longer able to use it.

You can email your experiences and comments to Mr Wright by emailing office@simonwright.org.uk, by phone on 01603 627 660.

An unusual collection has gone on display at the Norfolk and Norwich University hospital (NNUH).

Raising awareness of organ donation, the 24 vinyl figures each represent one of the 9 transplantable organs or tissues.

The dolls have been donated to the Hospital Arts Project by the Hospital Organ Donation Committee and are the creation of New York-based artist David Foox, who had a close family member who needed a double lung transplant.

“Organ donation is the single most important decision we can make in our lives simply because it means saving many other people when you no longer need your body,” says David Foox.

According to the NNUH, there are currently 10,000 individuals in the UK waiting for a life-saving or life-changing organ transplant and three of these people die every day on the waiting list. 29% of the population are registered as donors. Find out more online via the Organ Donation Register.

Some services, such as A&E and cancer treatment, will operate as normal, but others will be hit.

The hospital is asking the public to use emergency services appropriately tomorrow, to prevent them from becoming over-stretched.

Seven unions have voted to take industrial action: UNISON, Unite, the Society of Radiographers, Managers in Partnership, the Chartered Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, British Association of Occupational Therapists and the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists.

The Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Midwives and the British Medical Association have not balloted their members on taking industrial action.

Anna Dugdale, Chief Executive of the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Trust, said “We are very sorry for the stress and inconvenience this will cause to our patients and their families and we will do everything in our power to rearrange those patients affected as soon as possible. We are grateful to our staff for ensuring that surgery for cancer patients will not be affected.”

But she added some services will be operating as normal: “We are asking patients who are due to be admitted or to attend a clinic or outpatient appointment on 30th November to attend as normal unless informed by the hospital”.

Updates will be available via the hospital website as the full extent of the action becomes clearer.

Meanwhile, in separate incident, a man was forced to rob a cashpoint on Queen’s Road.

Detectives are appealing for information following the assault in The Stores on Dereham Road. The incident happened at about 1am on Sunday 6th November when the victim, a 58-year-old man, punched in the face, knocked to the floor, and lost consciousness. After being taken to the Norfolk and Norwich University hospital he has since been transferred to Addenbrooke’s.

Later on Sunday at 3pm, at the Sainsbury’s petrol station on Queen’s Road, a man was forced to take cash from the cashpoint, before being made to drive the offender to Vauxhall Street.

In this case, the man at the cashpoint tried to tell a member of the public what was happening.

If you can help with either case, call Norwich CID on 101 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

A 12-year old boy needed treatment in hospital after being hit by an airgun pellet near Eaton Park.

Police are appealing for witnesses, after a boy was shot by an air rifle. He was taken to the Norfolk and Norwich hospital just after 1pm on Saturday 8th October 2011.

The 12 year old was on Bluebell Road when he was hit in the right elbow with a pellet.

Officers are investigating whether this is linked to two reports of vehicles being damaged on Bluebell Road. In one case a bus was hit by an unknown object which smashed one of its windows and, in the second, a white van was hit by an unknown object that smashed a window: shards of the glass injured the driver.

Police would like to reassure the public these are isolated incidents and are following lines of enquiry.

Anyone who witnessed the incidents, saw any suspicious behaviour in the vicinity of Bluebell Road or has knowledge of the incidents should contact Bethel Street CID on0845 4564567 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

Carrie Wingfield has become one of very few nurse consultants specialising in dermatology within the NHS. Under the new role, she will have full responsibility for seeing patients and carrying out clinical procedures for skin cancer that were previously the preserve of doctors.

There are currently around six dermatology nurse consultants working in the NHS nationally but Carrie Wingfield is the first to practise skin surgery at this level.

In 2005 she made history by becoming the Trust’s first nurse prescriber and she has won several national innovation awards for introducing nurse-led clinics to improve patients’ access to specialist treatment. She left school at 16 and worked in retail before becoming a nursing auxiliary. She went on to complete her general nurse training and has now risen through the ranks. ”My son was three years old when I decided to try nursing as a career,” she said. “I did an Open University course to get me started and I’ve been studying, one way and another, ever since!

A major recruitment drive is underway to appoint 12 clinical academics and 30 researchers with expertise in diseases of the gut, bone and muscle. In time it will lead to the creation of two new centres: The Institute of the Gut, Norwich and the Norwich Institute of Bone and Muscle.

The initiative is being led by Professor Andrew Coats, Professor at Large, whose own appointment spans the Norwich Research Park (NRP), the University of East Anglia, the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, and four independent research centres; the John Innes Centre, the Institute of Food Research, the Sainsbury Laboratory and The Genome Analysis Centre.

With over 11,000 people, Norwich already has Europe’s largest single-site concentration of research in Health, Food and Environmental Sciences and has over 30 science and IT based companies in similar areas.

Although only a fraction of the way through the expansion plans, some key appointments have already been made such as a leading gastroenterologist, two new academic gut researchers, two senior academic cardiologists and a leading osteoporosis expert.

Professor Coats said: “A hundred thousand species of bacteria live in the gut. We don’t even know 2/3rds of them and we can’t grow them in laboratory conditions. But we can identify them through genetics and are working with the Genome Analysis Centre to find out more about the bacteria we’ve shared evolution with.”

Following on from becoming experts in the field of diseases of the gut, the second part of the strategy is to look into where poor nutrition or diet can lead to a lack of function or growth of tissue, and loss of weight in terms of bone and muscle.

Almost 6,000 babies were born at the N&N in the last year, up from 4,855 in 2003/4. In response, the hospital is opening a new birthing unit to cater for 4 more pregnant women at a time on Blakeney Ward. The idea of the new unit is to allow women with straightforward births to have a natural delivery in a more homely and less medical setting.

The hospital currently provides a shared consultant and midwife service from its 12-bed delivery suite, and a home birth service provided by the hospital’s community midwives.

Head of Midwifery Glynis Moore said: “We are pleased we will be getting a new midwifery-led birthing unit. This will give women a greater choice of where to have their baby and the additional birthing rooms will enable easier access to the hospital for all women in labour.” An additional four midwives are being recruited for the unit.