Secretary of State Sajid Javid praises BWC's 'phenomenal' work
During the two hour visit to the Children’s last Friday evening (11 March), the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and Bromsgrove MP heard about our rare diseases and genomes work and was taken on a tour of the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).
Upon arrival, Mr Javid was greeted by BWC Chief Executive Sarah-Jane Marsh and Chair Professor Sir Bruce Keogh before meeting with Professor Tim Barrett and Jennie Bell, two of our experts in rare diseases and genomes testing. Our Children’s Hospital is home to the Centre for Rare Diseases where there are 100,000 patient visits every year and 225 experimental medicine and early phase clinical trials currently taking place. As well as hearing about our specialist care and treatment for those with rare diseases, the Secretary of State also learned more about our genomes testing and how this will help to shape more targeted and personalised drug treatment for young patients in the future.
The PICU tour began with a welcome and introduction to the unit with Chief Medical Officer Dr 
Fiona Reynolds and nurse Margaret Farley. Conversations then followed with Dr Adrian Plunkett about the Learning from Excellence initiative and Zaf Intikhab about international recruitment and training. Four-year-old patient Dua and her dad Muhammed also got the chance to chat to the Secretary of State and enjoy a fun exchange, shortly before taking a few photos.
The visit concluded with a Roundtable discussion with West Midlands Mayor Andy Street and local health leaders about longer term system recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic, elective backlogs and the current pressures facing health colleagues all over the region.
Taking to Twitter the next day, Sajid described the day-to-day work of BWC staff as ‘phenomenal’. He said: "Great to visit @BWC_NHS yesterday to see the phenomenal work staff do day in and day out to care for patients. Really heartwarming to see all of the support provided to children on the intensive care unit - and it was such a pleasure to meet some of them."