THANK YOU — that is the message to every single one of you who has helped to raise an amazing £7.5m for Oxfordshire’s major hospitals in the past 12 months.

The money, raised from abseils, runs, walks, and charity dinners over the past year, will go towards making life for patients at Oxfordshire’s main hospitals just that little bit better.

The Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Charitable Funds, the charity which oversees donations to the John Radcliffe, Oxford children’s Hospital, the Churchill Hospital and The Horton Hospital in Banbury, allocates every penny contributed by charity events, and donations from individuals or businesses, to pay for things not covered by NHS funding.

Last year, £6.5m from the fundraising pot paid for state-of-the-art equipment, specialist medical training and groundbreaking research, including three new Computer Integrated Theatres, or CITs.

The theatres cost a total of £1m and help surgeons use the keyhole surgery technique, which helps patients heal more quickly and reduces the risk of infection.

But the charitable funds team said smaller donations were just as important.

Toys and computers for the children’s hospital, a piano and DVD player for the geratology unit for older patients, and paintings and pictures for all wards have all been bought with donated money.

A £450 ‘talking cushion’, which plays a message recorded by a relative of an elderly patient and has cut falls on the geratology ward 90 per cent, was also bought with donations from the public.

Ann Readhead, a ward sister in the geratology unit, said: “Falls for the elderly are extremely dangerous, and many older patients are vulnerable as they forget that they need help to stand.

“To be able to personalise the message for patients, so they hear a voice familiar to them gently telling them to sit down, is simple, but incredibly effective.”

One recent large fundraising event, the Oxford Mail OX5 Run, in aid of the Oxford Children’s Hospital ,looks set to bring in more than £45,000.

Katrina and Chris Randon’s 18-month-old son Alan was treated for a life-threatening bowel condition at the children’s hospital last year.

The couple, from Greater Leys, raised £500 by taking part in the run, at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock in April, with baby Alan in a backpack, as a way of saying thank you.

Mrs Randon said: “Staying in hospital is never a pleasant experience but everything the money goes towards makes time there just that bit better.”

Alice Hahn Gosling, director of fundraising, said: “This is one of the largest results we have ever had, despite the economic climate.

“This is a phenomenal amount of money, and we are incredibly grateful to the Oxford Mail for their continued support, as well as to all those who took part.“ Katrina Sharp, from Shellingford, near Faringdon, has also pledged to raise £20,000 for the specialist surgery unit which saved her son Phoenyx’s life two years ago – starting with a sponsored head shave.

She said: “Phoenyx was born with a disease called sagittal synostosis and macrocephal, which gives the sufferer a large or unusual shaped head.

“The care he received at the John Radcliffe was faultless and this is my way of saying thanks.”

awilliams@oxfordmail.co.uk