Health

Beaconsfield Town Council has managed to obtain funding from Bucks County Council and South Bucks District Council to install an outdoor all age fitness park in Beaconsfield.

Two locations, Malthouse Square Recreation Ground and Holtspur Way Recreation Ground have been identified by outside consultants as suitable venues.

A YOUNG couple whose daughter is battling an aggressive brain tumour have spoken out in this week's Buckinghamshire Advertiser about their desperate attempts to get her treated in America.

Samantha Ward, 26 and her partner Ben Duggan, 31 are fundraising for life-saving treatment for their 16-month-old daughter Jessica.

Since being diagnosed in March, she has undergone four operations but she needs a type of treament not available in the UK to survive.

DEMENTIA in Buckinghamshire is set to increase by 44 per cent in the next ten years according to new figures from a leading Alzheimer's charity.

Care centres across the county are being encouraged to ensure carers are given specialist training to manage the impact of an ageing population by identifying early symptoms and providing the best possible care.

Michael Lawson of Baring Road, Beaconsfield set up a local branch of the care home, Home Instead South Buckinghamshire 18 months ago, after a personal experience with his 84-year-old dad, who has Parkinsons disease.

AN 'EXHAUSTED' super dad has finished a 925-mile cycle ride from Land's End to John O'Groats, raising a huge £100,000 for a drug that could save his son's life.

David French, of Ledborough Lane, Beaconsfield, set off on Friday, May 27, with supportive team-mates, after months of training and fundraising. It has been his way of giving his family 'hope' for the future.

Mr French's son William, nine, was diagnosed with Niemann-Pick Disease, Type C (NPC), a crippling and very rare degenerative disease also known as childhood Alzheimer's, when he was six months old. Only 80 people in the UK are known to have the disease.

Lucy Cork went to meet some of Wexham Park Hospital's smallest patients and the professionals who work to save their lives.

Giving birth should be the most natural thing in the world for a woman. But for some new parents it can be a scary and traumatic time. Pat Lawson is a senior sister at Wexham Park Hospital's Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU). She has worked there for 14 years and on the day we meet, she is, fittingly, working a 14-hour shift.

I started at 7am. It's going to be a long day today, she said with a smile.

A DEVOTED father on a quest to cure his son's rare illness is taking on an 880-mile bike ride to pay for a life-saving drug.

David French, of Ledborough Lane, Beaconsfield, will cycle from Land's End to John
O'Groats, starting on May 27, to raise money for a pioneering new drug, which he hopes will prolong the life of his son William.

William, nine, was first diagnosed with Niemann-Pick Disease (NPD), a crippling degenerative disease also known as childhood Alzheimer's, when he was six months old and his mother, Sue, describes his condition as 'a ticking timebomb'.

A VITAL day care centre in Beaconsfield is saved after council bosses at Bucks County Council (BCC) agreed to turn it into a 'super centre'.

Seeley's House in Campbell Drive was one of 22 centres for the elderly and disabled earmarked for closure by BCC in June last year.

But at a cabinet meeting on Monday (21) it was saved after being selected as one of six new day opportunity centres to be created across the country.

THOUSANDS of stoic students and teachers braved the whistling rain in fantastic style at the Advertiser-sponsored Beaconsfield Fun Run today, (Friday 18) to raise money for Comic Relief.

BEACONSFIELD students are warmly welcoming the return of hot meals in a county-wide school dinner re-think.
Butlers Court Primary School in Wattleton Road is one of a number of schools currently undergoing massive improvements to bring back hot meals as part of the government's School Meals Improvement project, instigated by TV chef Jamie Oliver's School Dinners campaign in 2005.

By Jack Abell

A BEACONSFIELD chemist is on the hunt for the oldest medicine in the UK, and is offering rewards for anyone who brings old drugs to them.

Lloyd's Pharmacy in the Highway is urging residents to clear out their medicine supplies and take all out of date medicines to them, and is part of a nationwide scheme to ensure that out of date prescribed drugs are disposed of safely.