KIND-HEARTED Worcester people have left more than £800,000 in their wills over the last 12 months to help fund research into cancer, it has been revealed.

Figures from Cancer Research UK show that people in the city are playing a vital role in helping to fund the research of more than 3,000 doctors, nurses and scientists across the UK.

Paul Farthing, director of legacies at Cancer Research UK, said legacies, or gifts left in wills, were extremely important to the charity, which receives almost half of its funding in this way.

"Leaving a gift to charity is a simple way for anyone to support a good cause," he said. "The money left to us in legacies - about £130 million - funded almost half of our research last year, enabling us to safeguard the charity's vital research into the causes and treatments of all forms of cancer." More than one in three people in the UK will develop cancer at some time in their lives, with about 25,000 people diagnosed in the West Midlands every year, excluding non-melanoma skin cancer.

Mr Farthing added: "But the good news is that more and more people are surviving the disease thanks to earlier detection, more effective diagnosis and improved treatments made possible by ongoing research into the disease. For example, Cancer Research UK is helping to fund a trial in Worcester comparing two new approaches for treating bowel cancer that has spread to other parts of the body."

More than 100 local Cancer Research UK supporters attended an afternoon tea at the Bank House Hotel Golf and Country Club at Bransford, Worcester, on Tuesday, to find out more about the impact of legacies.

Supporters were joined by Professor Lawrence Young, director of the Cancer Research UK Institute for Cancer Studies in Birmingham, where the latest laboratory discoveries are being transformed into new ways to tackle cancer.