Transform Trauma campaign

Hi everyone. Some of you may already have noticed, but Barts Charity have launched a big campaign to raise awareness of the prevalence and impact of traumatic injury. It's called Transform Trauma and the Mirror Media group are media partners. They are aiming to raise £1m to put into research that will save more lives and improve recovery outcomes for trauma survivors. The campaign website is: www.transformtrauma.org.uk It has some good trauma survivor videos.

The campaign was launched on Sunday 16 July in The Mirror with a two page spread featuring the rap star Professor Green who is himself twice a victim of trauma: http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/professor-green-tells-how-trauma-10806304

There was a another big spread in The Mirror yesterday featuring trauma survivor Richard Livett, a victim of the London Bridge terror attacks: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/lifesavers-london-bridge-man-stabbed-10897488

In addition, Professor Brohi - director of the Centre for Trauma Sciences which runs this site - and Professor Green appeared on ITV's This Morning show discussing trauma: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eWOjjv_Tmo

And Professor Brohi also appeared with Vicky Balch, the lady who lost her leg in the Alton Towers rollercoaster crash, on the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire show (interview starts at 50:00) http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08y9vk6/victoria-derbyshire-20072017

This campaign is going to be going for quite a long time and there will be more media soon and I will keep folks up to date with whats going on. The other way to see what's happening is to follow the @aftertrauma Twitter account, and also check out the hashtag #TransformTrauma

There are plenty of ways to get involved - check out the campaign website.

It is really great to see the media spotlight finally falling on the impact and incidence of civilian trauma, as many people on this forum know all too well, it's all too common but awareness of the issues in the wider community is very low. And only 1% of medical research funding makes its way to trauma.

In other news, we have now have a part-time dedicated Public and Patient Involvement officer - Kerry Staab - who's son was very seriously injured many years ago, and Kerry was his dedicated carer during his very long recovery. She's keen to meet other survivors and carers who might like to be involved in any aspects of research or any other activities supporting trauma survivors. So feel free to drop her a line: kerry.traumappi@gmail.com

We are also making progress on developing an AfterTrauma recovery app. Some survivors and clinicians have been inputting into development and testing - if you'd like to be involved too it's not too late, just drop me a line: n.skeltys@qmul.ac.uk

Thanks and hope everyone is enjoying the summer!

Nicole