Award winning IBMS member’s work featured in HSJ

Malcolm Robinson MIBMS, winner of the Healthcare Science Patient and Public Participation Chief Scientific Officer Award, was instrumental in the launch of Harvey’s Gang, a scheme which helps seriously ill children understand how healthcare science contributes to their care.

Harvey’s Gang was founded in memory of eight year old Harvey Baldwin, who, during his treatment for acute myeloid leukaemia, came for a visit behind the scenes at the lab with Chief Biomedical Scientist Malcolm. According to Malcolm, “He was a seven year old boy who was curious about why so many samples had to be taken so often, and what we did with them.”

Having realised the impact upon the visit on both the patient and the laboratory staff, Harvey’s Gang was launched in November 2014 to enable other paediatric patients to visit their hospital laboratories. The scheme has since spread to 15 other sites in England, and is now going global – with the first international Harvey’s Gang tour to take place in Nashville, Tennessee.

The scheme has been hugely beneficial in his laboratory, Malcolm says: “What healthcare scientists get out of this is the reason they started the job in healthcare science: making a difference to a patient. Now, all of a sudden they can actually see the patient and the difference they’re making."

To read more about Malcolm Robinson and Harvey’s Gang, visit the HSJ website.