Singer Phil Collins and photographer Lord Litchfield have both helped a former Oxford nurse buy an ultrasound scanner for a hospital in her homeland of St Vincent.

From left, Beverley O'Neill, Phyllis Evans, and Shirin O'Neill

Phyllis Evans, of Briar Way, Blackbird Leys, has now flown out to the Caribbean island to hand over the equipment, which she bought after setting up the St Vincent Hospital Appeal Fund.

Her daughter Beverley O'Neill, of Kiln Lane, Headington, said her mother had left St Vincent as a teenager, and trained as a nurse before working at Oxford's Radcliffe Infirmary and John Radcliffe Hospital.

She said: "My parents originate from St Vincent and have a business there. The idea is for them to eventually return.

"My mother went back about seven years ago and volunteered in the hospital.

"She was appalled at the state it was in and when she came back to the UK, she started a charity to raise money to help it. It's their way of giving something back to the island."

Mrs O'Neill said the charity had been able to buy the ultrasound scanner for the hospital's maternity unit after a number of donations helped them reach their target of £2,000.

She said: "Phil Collins has helped and Lord Litchfield. It's meant we could build the total up."

The family will present the machinery to hospital staff during their three-week stay in St Vincent.