Coventry Royal Visit
ROYALS OPEN FACULTY OF HEALTH AND LIFE SCIENCES BUILDING
The WPH Charitable Trust was honoured to receive a special invitation to the official opening ceremony of Coventry University’s new £59 million Faculty of Health and Life Sciences building, performed by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on January 16th.
Trustee Rob Blacklock was delighted when he received a surprise invitation to the event, one of three Royal engagements in the city.
It followed a donation of £10,000 towards the new facility from the WPH Trust.
Rob, who attended on behalf of the Trust, was among some 200 invited guests, including healthcare professionals, university lecturers and students.
The Royal couple were taken on a tour of the facility and met some of the guests as well as members of local community groups who work with patients, as well as service users themselves.
Rob said: “It was a great experience. The Duke and Duchess were probably there for about an hour and a half in total touring the new building and meeting people. They were extremely impressed with the facility.”
“It is a fantastic building, very state of the art – giving students the perfect environment in which to learn how to deal with real-life scenarios.
The first two floors of the building are world class and designed to follow an emergency patient’s progress. For example, there is an ambulance on the ground floor so paramedic trainees can see inside first-hand and learn how to treat a patient whilst in the ambulance itself. From the ambulance a patient progresses through an operating theatre, recovery area, two hospital wards and an Intensive Care Unit – each of which are full size mock ups, providing every possible stage of the patient experience on one floor.
Other facilities included two full-size community houses, designed to give students realistic experiences of working within people’s homes. One of these has been fully equipped throughout for disabled people, including rise and fall units and work surfaces that move up and down for wheelchair users.
On other floors of the building there are extensive research laboratories, including ones for sports science.
Rob said: “It was an honour to be invited to the opening. It was extremely interesting to see the facility. It will be of tremendous benefit, both to Coventry University and Coventry itself.”
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Alternatively, applications can be sent by post to: Secretary to the WPH Charitable Trust, c/o Blythe Liggins, Edmund House, Rugby Road, Leamington Spa, CV32 6EL.
