Made in the

Black Country

MyPKU was born in the Black Country: that proudly gritty stretch of the West Midlands west of Birmingham, covering Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall, and Wolverhampton. It's a region that has always made things: iron, glass, chain, and now, software.

Where PKU treatment began

Birmingham Children's Hospital sits a few miles east of the Black Country, on Steelhouse Lane in the city centre. For families across the region, it has always been the hospital: the place children with complex conditions are referred to, the place that has cared for generations of PKU patients.

What many people don't know is that BCH is not merely a treatment centre for PKU. It is where PKU treatment was invented.

In 1951, a girl named Sheila Jones, not yet two years old, became the first person in the world to receive dietary treatment for PKU. Her mother Mary had persistently demanded help from the hospital, waiting outside the laboratory daily until three clinicians took up the challenge: Dr Horst Bickel, Dr John Gerrard, and Dr Evelyn Hickmans. Together they formulated the world's first low-phenylalanine protein substitute, prepared by hand in the hospital laboratory.

Sheila's condition improved. The work done at BCH that year showed that PKU could be treated with diet, which made it worth finding babies with PKU early. Newborn blood spot screening followed, built on the assay developed by Robert Guthrie in the United States. England began national screening in 1969 and the whole of the UK was covered by the early 1970s, so the heel-prick test now picks up PKU in babies born here.

A commemorative plaque honouring Sheila, her mother, and the three clinicians was unveiled at Birmingham Children's Hospital in October 2021, on the 70th anniversary of the breakthrough.

Today, the hospital says its metabolic team cares for more than 1,200 patients across the West Midlands with inherited metabolic disorders. That figure comes from the hospital's own website, so check there for the current number.

For many Black Country families, BCH has long been part of PKU care. MyPKU is built to support that same journey, day to day, in between appointments.

MyPKU is independent of Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, and is not endorsed by it.

The flag

The Black Country flag was adopted in 2012 following a competition run by the Black Country Living Museum. Every element on it earns its place.

The chain

By the end of the 19th century, 90% of all chainmaking in England and Wales was concentrated in five Black Country towns. The most famous firm, Noah Hingley & Sons of Netherton, forged the anchor chains for the RMS Titanic. When completed in 1911, the anchor was hauled through the streets on a wagon drawn by 20 shire horses. The craft is kept alive today through heritage demonstrations at sites including the Mushroom Green Chain Shop in Cradley Heath.

The glass cone

The distinctive conical glasshouse was the defining skyline of the Black Country for two centuries. The region developed some of the finest glassmaking in the world, and examples like the Red House Cone at Wordsley survive to this day.

Black and red

The American Consul Elihu Burritt, writing in his 1868 book, described the region as “black by day and red by night”, black from the coal smoke and smog that blotted out the sun, red from the furnace glow that lit up the sky after dark. The flag carries both colours deliberately.

Heritage and purpose

The Black Country has always been defined by making things that matter and getting on with it. Not flashy, not loud, just built to work. That's the spirit MyPKU is made in.

PKU is a lifelong condition that requires daily discipline. The people who manage it, and the families who support them, deserve tools that are straightforward, reliable, and genuinely useful. MyPKU exists to be exactly that.

The flag in the corner of every page is a reminder of where this started: a region that built things with its hands, a hospital that changed everything in 1951, and a community of PKU patients across the West Midlands who have been managing this condition long before apps existed to help them.