Nottingham Children’s Hospital celebrates 30 years as the first NHS trust to provide complementary therapy to young patients | Latest news

For the past 30 years, Ginny McGivern has been offering complementary therapy to Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) patients, to provide a calming space away from the ward, where they can relax and receive soothing treatments to improve their wellbeing. 

Ginny, who originally worked as a Junior Sister at Nottingham Children’s Hospital, first started offering the service to patients in 1996, making NUH the first NHS Trust in the country to offer this unique, nurse-led complementary therapy service for children and young people. 

For children whose lives are affected by illness or disease, the therapies provide much-needed relief from discomfort due to the side effects of chemotherapy or post-operative pain, for example. Patients suffering from neurological disorders, anxiety-related illnesses, complex pain disorders and many other conditions also benefit from the service.

The therapy sessions provide a positive focus for young patients to look forward to, at a time when they may be experiencing increased stress or anxiety about being in the hospital. 

One patient, who would have refused to come to hospital if it wasn’t for Ginny, is 11-year-old Grace. Grace has end-stage chronic kidney disease.

Grace’s mum, Karen, said: “Ginny’s support has been amazing. Grace wouldn’t come to hospital if she didn’t think she was seeing Ginny.

“She sees her as a friend, and she feels she can talk to Ginny as well as the massages helping with her restless legs and helping her sleep better.

“Ginny has taught me some massage techniques to use with Grace at home too and they have made a huge difference.”

Grace has 40 hours of nocturnal dialysis at home in Barnsley each week and has regular trips to Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC) for appointments with the renal team.

She said: “I can sleep through the dialysis, but my mum doesn’t. She’s always worried that I might turn in my sleep and pull the line out.

“I used to have it in the day and had to miss school. It was always on days when I missed my favourite lessons. Now it means I don’t miss school or being with my friends.”

The service, which has been funded by Nottingham Hospitals Charity since 2006, receives a large amount of positive feedback from patients, their families and staff at the hospital, to such an extent that the service has become an integral part of the patient care pathway.

Nigel Gregory, Chief Executive of Nottingham Hospitals Charity, said: "The children's complementary therapy service, run by Ginny, gives children and young people the chance to step away from the clinical environment and experience soothing and relaxing treatments, at what can be an otherwise scary and uncertain time.

“We're grateful to our supporters for enabling us to fund this service, and to Ginny for providing such special care for many young patients over the years."

Ginny explained the difference the service makes: “I offer a wide range of services, including massage, relaxation, visualisation and baby massage, based on their needs and illnesses.

“Any child between the age of 0-18 with any condition will come into the room and have a therapy of their choosing. 

“A lot of them have a traumatic association with the hospital due to having invasive treatment, so we need to reassure them that this treatment will not hurt them.”

Grace’s mum, Karen, knows only too well the trauma that her daughter associates with hospital. In 2024 their whole world came crashing down when Grace collapsed and was rushed to Sheffield Children’s Hospital to be told her kidneys were in total failure and she had got hours to live.

Grace was blue-lighted to QMC to the Renal unit where they put her in an induced coma for a week to explore what was happening. This is when they discovered she had a rare auto-immune disease which had attacked her kidneys and was starting to attack her lungs.

Two years on , Grace’s mum Karen, her dad Steve and her little sister Eva are all desperate for Grace to receive a kidney transplant.

Karen said: “Every trip to the hospital feels hard and full of sadness but when Grace has an appointment with Ginny, I know she will always leave the hospital with a smile on her face. The service is invaluable”

Watching Ginny talking to Grace and giving her a soothing foot massage you can see the reward she gets. How long will she continue to provide this much-needed service? Ginny said: “As long as it keeps receiving the funding it needs to survive.”

After the session in the special complementary therapy room, Grace said: “I feel relaxed and happy. Ginny is my favourite person, and she really makes feel happy even on a hard hospital day.”