Supporters of Baby Beat and Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Charity (LTHC), who took part in this year’s NHS Big Climb at the Royal Preston Hospital, set a new record for scaling the climb’s 6m high wall by summiting it an incredible 550 times to raise £4,660 for the two causes.
In total, it meant the eight participating teams of six, which included three children’s teams and a one man team from event sponsor, Longridge civil engineering company William Pye Ltd, achieved a collective total climb of 3,300m to almost match the height of Mount Etna!
Each team had 30 minutes to climb the wall, which was set up in the Health Academy car park, as many times as possible. The team which made the most climbs with a tally of 122 was a Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust team from Organisational Development, OD Rocks, which was one of three trust staff teams in the competition.
Climb organiser and charity team fundraiser Lucy Clark said: “Congratulations to OD Rocks on its second successive win. We introduced the NHS Big Climb into our fundraising calendar just last year. In 2024, OD Rocks won with 95 climbs so they’ve come back significantly stronger and better!
“Thank you to all our climbers, their supporters and William Pye Ltd. Its sponsorship effectively covered our expenses for the wall’s hire. This means all the funds raised by the teams can go to supporting Baby Beat and LTHC projects.”
Lucy added: “Specifically, the LTHC projects the climb will help are Children’s Fund initiatives to improve facilities for children attending the Royal Preston Hospital as either in or out-patients and our Research Fund, which supports projects aimed at improving health and wellbeing as well as neurology research.”