Where your money goes

Whilst the NHS provides substantial funds for the Wythenshawe Transplant Centre there is always a demand for funding to support pioneering treatments and research which the NHS is unable to fund.
New Start therefore has stepped in with funding to allow these important techniques to be implemented at the Wythenshawe Transplant Centre.
In this section we profile some of the recent projects which have utilised cutting edge procedures to enhance clinical practices for the benefit of patients.
Please click on the links below to find out more about these exciting projects and how patients benefit.

Organ Care System

In 2016 New Start gave the funding of   funded 125k to purchase five perfusion kits for use in a recently developed innovative organ care system which can perform DCD (Donation after Circulatory Death) transplants. This purchase should enable the Transplant Centre to
carry out 10%-20% more heart transplants per annum and should help in bringing down the waiting list, particularly for non urgent cases.

Nick Egan was the first patient to receive a heart that had been put on the Organ Care System. To read his story CLICK HERE

ECMO Machines

In January 2015 new Start purchased 2 ECMO machines for use on the Critical Cardio – Thoracic Care Unit..ECMO is used when a patient has a serious condition which prevents the lungs or heart from working normally. An ECMO machine is very similar to the heart and lung machine used during open-heart surgery. It is a supportive measure that uses an artificial lung (the membrane) to oxygenate the blood outside the body (extracorporeal). Read more

Ex-Vivo Lungs Programme

The Ex-Vivo Lung Perfusion technique (EVLP) allows surgeons to evaluate and recondition borderline donor lungs outside the body. This enables them to use such lungs for a transplant that otherwise would have been rejected.
This is achieved by using two machines; one to “breath” oxygen to the lungs and another to allow blood to circulate through the lungs – effectively the lungs are functioning normally outside the body.

Artificial Hearts

The main problem with heart transplants is the shortage of donors and the difficulty of finding donors when they are most needed. Regretfully, a sizeable number of patients die before a suitable heart becomes available or they become unstable very quickly. Read More 

The Scanner

Thanks to you we have achieved our goal of raising £1 million to purchase a Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Scanner for our hospital – the only machine of its kind in the North West.

This latest technology enables the cardiologists to get a much clearer picture of the operation of the heart without any radiation or invasive surgery

Videobronchoscopy Equipment

Thanks to the Charity and its supporters – the lung transplant team have been able to purchase new state of the art Bronchoscopy equipment to the tune of £50,000. This new equipment allows the ability to record pictures of the patient’s airways which helps to follow changes in the transplanted lungs more objectively. It also allows patient’s to watch the procedure on a TV screen whilst it is happening. Dr Colm Leonard says it has been a great success and makes life a lot easier for all those concerned..

Biopsy Lab

The new lab in the Transplant Centre completely refurbishes a facility that was originally equipped with second-hand technology installed back in 1992. The charity funded the refurbishment at a cost of £160,000. The overall effect has been to make the lab a lighter and more spacious environment for patients and staff to work in. The new tilt table allows better access for patients and enables them to be positioned more accurately by staff ready for the scanning procedures. Although more complex to operate the new scanning equipment provides much greater image quality.

Transplant Research

The dedicated transplant research Laboratory focuses its efforts delineating the role of the immune system in different complications following transplantation. Our research group has been very successful, regularly reporting new findings to the scientific community, and changing clinical practice. This has given us an international reputation for high impact science, which would not be possible without the generous financial assistance from New Start and all its supporters.