The first MediCinema in the North West

July 2024

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MediCinema is a charity which improves the wellbeing and quality of life of NHS patients and their families through the power of the shared cinema experience and the magic of film. It builds and runs cinemas in hospitals equipped with space for beds, wheelchairs, and medical equipment and shows the latest movies for free. It’s services demonstrably improve emotional, mental, and physical health, reduce feelings of isolation, anxiety, and stress, and increase patient resilience.

Since our grant to the charity back in February, we are delighted to hear that building has started inside Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, to create a brand-new state of the art MediCinema for it’s patients and their families.

The specially designed in-hospital cinema, due to open later this year, will be funded exclusively by Alder Hey Children’s Charity and MediCinema. It will be the only one in a solely paediatric hospital in the UK and the first in the North West.

Being unwell and in hospital can be challenging, frightening and often isolating for families who are already feeling vulnerable. Leaving the wards to experience a film screening in Alder Heys MediCinema will have a positive and lasting impact on these children.

Children like Grace, who developed a serious autoimmune disease and spent four weeks in the Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow – her mother Shona described the difference MediCinema made there:

“We saw multiple different films during Grace’s stay and every time it was a constant bit of cheer to enter the MediCinema and see the rows of brightly coloured seats. MediCinema felt like a pause from reality, where we could think about something other than Grace’s condition and just laugh together and enjoy ourselves as a family.”

Anna Twentyman CFO of The Kentown Wizard Foundation:
“MediCinema has been successfully transforming the hospital experience for children since 1999, across a number of different hospitals within the UK but hadn’t yet reached the North West. Knowing how impactful the MediCinema experience can be for children, we were eager to offer our support to get the project started as soon as possible. Now the build is underway, we look forward to seeing their magical project come to life at Alder Hey, Children’s Hospital.”