Chronic lung disease affects 10% of over 75 year olds and 2% of the rest of the population. These figures are on the increase and take no account of those sufferers whose problems have not yet reached chronic level. It is estimated that in Gloucestershire every family will have someone, sometime suffering from chest disease.
The Gloucestershire Chest Fund is a small, locally based, non-profit making medical charity established in 1991 by Mrs Doreen Roberts (a lifelong sufferer of chest disease) and two Chest Consultants.
The charity’s main objective is to help create centres of excellence for the detection, diagnosis and treatment of chest diseases in the county of Gloucestershire.
The Fund provides equipment and services requested by our Trustee Chest Consultants. These special requests would not normally involve equipment and services provided by the local NHS. To date we have raised and spent nearly £700,000 including; 12 NIV machines, EBUS ultrasound machine, nebulisers, Plura Videoscope, and NOX sleep study machines. Our current project is to raise £55,000 for a CPET machine to measure lung function prior to surgery; Currently patients have to travel to Bristol for the test.