Research celebrated at Black Country event
Date of release: 22 November 2024
Research was championed in many forms at a Black Country celebration event where Wolverhampton and Walsall’s NHS Trusts dominated the awards.
Aaron presenting the Best Poster award to Dr Ali Aries
Guest speaker – Team GB’s Paralympic gold medallist Aaron Phipps – told the Black Country Research Celebration audience he owed his life to research.
The 41-year-old presented the awards with Sir David Nicholson, KCB, CBE, Group Chair at the event, which attracted around 120 people to The Hawthorns, home of West Bromwich Albion FC.
Attendees were from NHS Trusts of The Royal Wolverhampton (RWT), Walsall Healthcare, Sandwell and West Birmingham, The Dudley Group, as well as Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, and the Black Country Integrated Care Board.
And the excited audience quite literally struck gold as Aaron’s precious honour was handed around. Aaron, who lost both lower legs after contracting meningitis as a teenager, was part of Team GB’s first wheelchair rugby gold-medal winning team, in Tokyo 2021.
An emotional Aaron said: “It’s amazing for me to say thank you to all these incredible people. Research goes on in the background, but it probably saved my life.
“After I was poorly, the Consultants said to my mum ‘do you realise how lucky you are? It’s from the research that has gone on that kept me alive.
“I’ve now got a beautiful young family and I get to play international sport for my country.”
Best Poster went to Dr Ali Aries, Allied Health Professionals Research Lead at RWT, for AHPs building capacity across the Black Country – the Research ABC project.
Best Presentation went to Dr Viktoria Eleftheriadou, Consultant Dermatologist at Walsall Healthcare and RWT (award collected by Catherine Dexter, Research Manager at Walsall Healthcare).
Aaron with his gold medal (left) and the RWT Research and Development Team
Dr Eleftheriadou presented on home hand-held phototherapy in the NHS: implementation of evidence-based treatment in the ‘real world’. This is a device is fitted with narrowband ultra-violet B (UVB) lamps to deliver a small dose of UVB to selected patches of skin disease.
She has set up England’s only vitiligo care clinic, run for children at Walsall Manor Hospital and at New Cross Hospital for adults.
The Chair’s Award went to Chris Scordis, Clinical Exercise Physiologist, RWT (collected by Dr Ros Leslie, Chief AHP at RWT).
Chris presented on monitoring long-term outcomes for patients adhering to supervised phase 4 exercise rehabilitation.
Eleven presentations were made to the delegates, plus three patients who shared their own experiences, while there were also four specialist ‘breakout’ sessions for people to attend.
One patient, Joseph Kenney, suffered eczema so badly that he was left with deep wounds on his legs.
But thanks to joining the EXTEND clinical trial from 2018-2023 run by Walsall Healthcare, he was cured of the condition. He was treated with a biological drug Tralokinomab made by Adtralza which prevents the cycle of itching.
He said: “Being in a research trial changed my life. The Walsall team is amazing.”
Inspired by the moving speech from Aaron, Sir David said: “There’s nothing better for us than to hear directly from patients to feel what their experience was.
“And if Aaron can go up Mount Kilimanjaro on his hands and knees, then there’s no limits to what we can do together.”
Sir David added: “All of the systems in research work fantastically well but we need to have a common infrastructure across the Black Country to make it work even better.”
#BlackCountryResearch
ENDS
- For further information, please call Tim Nash on 07714 741097 or email tim.nash2@nhs.net
