LITTLE more than a year ago we reported on a charity's plans to raise £5.25m for a new hospice in Worcester.

St Richard's made those plans in January 2004 once the city council had approved its bid for a 15-bed palliative care centre in Wildwood Drive, Spetchley.

At the time, we wrote: "The good people of Worcestershire will, we are sure, once again dig deep and make generous donations to make this much-needed facility a reality."

Little did we realise just how fast - or how deeply - people would dig in response to this call.

Thanks to the generosity of Evening News readers and others, more than £4m has already been raised.

This is a truly phenomenal amount - especially as the charity only officially launched its campaign in July last year.

This incredible sum means the new centre will be built this year and open in 2006.

The work undertaken by St Richard's is rightly praised in all quarters and touches an increasingly large number of lives in the Faithful City and beyond.

We have always maintained that the provision of respite care should be part of the National Health Service's mandate and the well-being of those with life-limiting conditions should not be left to the efforts of charities.

However, we must accept the realities of 21st Century healthcare in Britain - and count ourselves very lucky that we have an organisation like St Richard's Hospice in our community.