Surprise! Pop star Jess is a tonic for little Riley
ONE of the biggest names in pop music dialled in to boost the mood of a poorly young boy.
Chart-topping Jess Glynne, who last year broke the record for the most number one singles by a British female artist, found time to ring Riley Merrill, a patient at Calderdale Royal Hospital (CRH) in Halifax .
Nurses in the children’s ward arranged a Facetime call for Riley, nine, but surprised him by telling him to come for a blood test.
When he arrived he found an iPad with his pop idol Jess on a live video call on the screen.
As she began to sing her chart hit ‘All I Am’, Riley quickly joined in for a duet, bringing tears to the eyes of kind-hearted nurse Lola Duncan, who managed to arrange the call.
Riley then got to chat to his favourite singer for 10 minutes – and now she is sending him some tickets for her Manchester concert.
Riley’s mum, Jackie Merrill, said the NHS nurse had gone the extra mile to help her boy, who suffers from a rare skin disease that requires him to be bandaged from his neck to his toes 24 hours a day.
They had already helped him get better seats for Jess’s concert in
Leeds last year.
Riley is being treated by Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust for the rare epidermolysis bullosa, which he has had since birth.
The debilitating disorder causes his skin to be incredibly fragile with painful blisters.
The Mixenden youngster is unlucky to have the most severe type.
There is currently no cure and it has to be managed with dressings and by avoiding things that make it worse.
Jackie said he had been attending CRH every few weeks for the past nine months after his condition got worse.
She said that when
Riley first saw Jess on the screen “he couldn’t believe it.”
She added: “He loves watching her videos and the nurses had already tried to get him a shoutout when we went to her concert.
“They’ve gone beyond the call of duty.”