A successful campaign: £250k ringfenced for hospital project

5 May

Written By The Oliver Fisher Special Care Baby Trust

In April 2025, The Oliver Fisher Special Care Baby Trust announced that, to celebrate our 40th year supporting neonatal care in Medway and Swale, we had an exciting new fundraising campaign: IC-e Cream. Why? Because the Medway NHS Foundation Trust had asked us if we could provide extra funding for a proposed project to refurbish the Intensive Care Ward within the Oliver Fisher Neonatal Unit (OFNU).

Over the years, our charity has stepped in on various infrastructure projects like this, such as the opening of a Transitional Care Ward (NICU support but within the maternity ward) and the refurbishment of High Dependency, so we were only to happy to pledge £250,000 and set a campaign in motion.

Today we are delighted to announce that our charity treasurer, Geoffrey Lawrence, has been able to successfully transfer £250,000 in to restricted funds, ready for the Medway NHS Foundation Trust to call on when the project moves forward in their timeline; the extensive refurbishment, including a complete refurbishment and a full replacement of the lifesaving gantry system, is currently in planning stages.

The Oliver Fisher Special Care Baby Trust trustees look forward to working alongside the Medway NHS Foundation Trust [Unit staff and the Medway Maritime Hospital’s Estates Team] on the refurbishment of Intensive Care and helping to ensure that top-level services available to the smallest members of our community.

Yellow graphic showing an ice cream tracker filled to the top two hundred and fifty thousand pounds

We would like to take this opportunity to recognise the absolutely fantastic support our charity has received in reaching this goal. Fundraisers, event organisers, challenge participants, those who share our social media posts, anyone who puts a few pennies in a collection pot; every single person who has chosen our charity over the last 12 months has helped us commit to this project. Not only that but we have continued to be able to fund other funding requests and services without interruption which is a phenomenal achievement for a small, local charity such as ours.

“We are therefore dedicating our Race Day event at Milton Creek on 10th May as a celebration. The event is already set to be our best yet, with local triathlon group, the Sittingbourne Striders, providing pacers for those who are hoping to ‘PB’ on the 10k, there is also a 5k, and Family Fun 2k where we have seen participants as young as 6 months old! Everyone who takes part will get a specially designed, bespoke medal so each participant can share in this resoundingly successful campaign.”