BIG-HEARTED Worcester sisters who were poster girls for a £2 million appeal have helped save the lives of other children like them.

Ellie, aged 13, and Olivia Howard, eight from, Barbourne, Worcester were both saved by heart surgery at Birmingham Children’s Hospital and became poster girls for the Children’s Heart Appeal to build a state of the art ‘hybrid’ heart operating theatre.

The pair featured on billboards all over the area as poster girls for the appeal when it was launched nearly two years ago and have taken part in fund-raising.

Birmingham is the first children’s hospital in Britain to have a ‘hybrid’ theatre designed to allow open heart and keyhole surgery on the same child at the same time, boosting their chances of survival.

It will treat an extra 300 patients a year, with plans for more in the future, and the project also includes an expansion of the hard-pressed intensive care unit from 20 beds to 31 and a new catheterisation laboratory, where keyhole cardiac surgery can be carried out.

Both Ellie and Olivia were born with congenital defects, including holes in their heart and narrowed valves, but then underwent successful open heart operations at the age of four.

Cardiac surgeons at Birmingham Children’s Hospital used tissue from their own heart sacs to patch up the holes and inserted a shunt to widen the heart valve.

After a string of health problems as toddlers, they are now thriving and Olivia, who goes to Northwick Manor Primary School, is described as “a lively tomboy who loves sport”.

Ellie, whose original condition was particularly severe, leads a virtually normal life and plays in the football club at her school Bishop Perowne College in Worcester.

Their mother Corin Howard said she was “over the moon” that the appeal had been so successful.

She said: “Ellie could well need treatment at the hybrid theatre at some stage as she has a shunt in her narrowed heart valve that may have to have to be changed, but I have every confidence in the hospital as they’ve done such a great job for our family and they’re now saving many kids who'd have died even a few years ago.”

The hospital’s supporters raised the cash in under two years in a variety of ways from sponsored abseils and a freezing Snowdon swim to major corporate donations, non-uniform days and half marathons.

Consultant Cardiac Surgeon David Barron said: “This has put Birmingham Children’s Hospital Cardiac Unit at the forefront of technical advance and we are enormously grateful to all who have helped – and proud that you have all stepped up to help with such generosity and speed to reach the target in record time.”