PEOPLE in Worcestershire are being urged to help buy a vital new scanner for a town's hospital.

The Friends of Malvern Community Hospital is aiming to raise £60,000 to buy an imaging device for a new pain clinic at the Worcester Road hospital.

The campaign is off to a flying start, with £1,700 raised from a fashion show, and £5,000 given to the fund by an anonymous donor.

Friends’ chairman Sheila Young said: “Thanks to these and other initiatives, we have got just over £19,000.

“That’s a great start, but we've got some way to go and we welcome everyone’s help in reaching our target.”

She said as well as big events like the fashion show, fund-raising carries on through events such as a weekly coffee morning at the Prospect View health centre.

“With a big appeal like this, we want all the help we can get,” she said.

“We urge people to organise their own events and we want people to come to us with their ideas for fundraising.”

She also urged people to get involved with the friends.

“There are 60,000 people in Malvern and we have only about 400 members supporting our work. Any new members will be welcome,” she said.

The C-arm image intensifier is an X-ray device vital for the precise delivery of painkilling injections.

Once installed in Malvern, it will mean patients, many ofthem elderly, will not have to travel to Kidderminster or Evesham for treatment.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust spokesman Claire Austin said: “We are very grateful for charitable donations which help us buy items of equipment in addition to those which are purchased as part of our annual capital expenditure budget for new equipment.”

Friends secretary Maureen Williams said: “We all know that the NHS can't afford to buy everything that it needs, and that’s why we raise money for things like this.”

John Wilson, deputy editor of the Malvern Gazette, the local newspaper which is backing the appeal, said: “This important piece of equipment will help doctors ease the pain of patients in Malvern.

“We are determined to see this worthwhile appeal reach its target as quickly as possible, and are sure that it will be well supported by local people.”

More than 120 people attended the fashion show at the Bank House, Bransford.

It was staged by Jill Campbell of Malvern boutique Isis, who provided the clothes and the models, while local businesses set up trade stands and provided raffle prizes.

Mrs Williams said: “It went really well. Jill was fantastic and everyone really enjoyed themselves”

To find out more about the friends, contact Mrs Williams on 01684 575937.

What is an image intensifier?

THE image intensifier that the Gazette is campaigning for will be a great boon to Malvern Community Hospital, says the consultant who will be using it.

Dr Mahesh Chaudhari will be in charge of the pain clinic set to start up at the hospital shortly and which will treat people suffering with conditions such as neck pain, back pain and sciatica pains.

“It will be run by a multi-disciplinary team consisting of myself, a specialist nurse and a orthopaedic practitioner,” he said.

Diagnosis is one thing, but treatment is another, and for this, the C-arm image intensifier is a vital tool for making the treatments accurate, said Dr Chaudhari.

“We treat many of these conditions with injections, and the injections have to be placed with great accuracy to ensure that they are as effective as possible,” he said.

“This is where the image intensifier is so valuable, because it enables us to make the injections very precise.

“I would say that we make 80 per cent of our injections using the image intensifier.

“Once we can do that in Malvern, it means that patients from Malvern, many of them elderly and in pain, would not have to travel long distances to other hospitals to get their treatment.

“It will be very good for local people and we are really grateful that this campaign to buy it has been launched.”

Alex Borg, general manager of anaesthesia at Worcestershire Acute NHS Trust, said: “I want to thank the Friends and the Malvern Gazette for this campaign.

“Installing the image intensifier at Malvern Community Hospital will make a great deal of difference to patients from the town and the surrounding area.”