League of Friends to fund £40,000 of hospital equipment

Last night's meeting of the charity's general committee agreed en bloc a catalogue of requests for equipment for the Irvine Unit totalling 22,116.

League chairman Stuart Earl apologised to Jim Davey, operations director for East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust.

He said the league's pre-Christmas meeting had given Mr Davey a "hard time" because members were concerned that requests from the Irvine Unit, which is run by Hastings and Rother Primary Care Trust, had been delayed and were not presented to the meeting.

Mr Davey had since been able to show that the requests had not reached him until January 3.

Items the league will now purchase for the Irvine Unit range from six portering wheelchairs costing in total 3,625, a 2,422 Snowdon Recliner and 40 overbed tables costing in total 5,875 to a washing machine for dealing with the personal clothing of those patients without relatives to undertake the work.

The meeting also agreed to fund the 2,464 cost of new furnishings for the relatives' rooms at the Conquest Hospital. The rooms are used to accommodate the relatives of critically ill patients. The furnishings have been in use since the Conquest Hospital opened and are now described as "very shabby."

The league also agreed to fund half the 30,000 cost of converting a redundant corridor at the Conquest to create a treatment room for the outpatients' and ENT department together with an office for the Sister and a quiet room where staff can counsel newly-diagnosed cancer patients.

Treasurer Robin Barnett has been warning the league's committee for the past three years that the amount received in legacies - the league's principal source of income -has been dropping.

In his report, he told members that in the last two months a spate of cash from legacies and notice of bequests to follow had, potentially, produced more income than in the whole of the rest of the year.

They included advance notice that the league could expect a 100,000 bequest under the will of its late membership secretary, Joan Corke.

Another 39,000 was awaited under the will of the late Ena Kemp , 40,000 from the late Edna North, 1,000 from late league vice president Ellen Lord, 500 under the will of Beryl Potterill and half the residue of the estate of Eva Sly.

The charity had received 2,000 from the will of Elizabeth Daniels, 14,000 from that of Ronald Stevens, 404 from Constance Taylor and 250 from Ellen Wheat.

Together with another major bequest understood to be currently in the pipeline, the league could expect to receive in total around 476,000.

The meeting approved the draft of the 2007 financial statement which the treasurer will present to the annual meeting in Bexhill Health Centre on April 16.

The chairman reported on the "positive" meeting he and the president had had with the PCT's head of adult services, Alice Webster, over league concerns over the future of the Irvine Unit.

As a result of the meeting, the officers had invited her to be guest speaker at the annual meeting.