PROSPECT Hospice has been awarded more than £5,000 after applying for a slice of an annual grant from the Adver’s parent company.

The £5,554 grant to the Wroughton-based hospice was awarded by the Gannett Foundation Trust, the charitable arm of publisher Newsquest.

The money will go towards buying a new hoist to help staff move patients with mobility issues.

Prospect Hospice’s occupational therapist, Anne Hughes, said: “We needed a hoist to use in the in-patient unit similar to those that people use in their own homes, but robust enough to be used regularly on the unit.

“Using this new hoist will be virtually the same as using those that people are familiar with at home, which is so important to our patients’ everyday activity.

"For patients and carers it will help them to gain confidence in using a hoist, which is really important for people who have limited mobility, particularly when they live with a condition that means getting out of bed is problematic, or even otherwise impossible.”

The news was also welcomed by the hospice’s fundraising team, which has been working closely with the Adver this year to raise £160,000 for the charity in celebration of the town’s 160-year-old newspaper.

Prospect Hospice trust fundraiser Liz Redvers-Weston said: “We are hugely grateful to the Gannett Foundation for looking favourably on our grant application because we know that it will bring relief and support to so many patients and their carers in future.

"On their behalf we would like to thank the Gannett Foundation and everyone at Newsquest and the Swindon Advertiser for their support.”

In the past 10 years Gannett Foundation Trust has donated £4m to local community projects across the country, with grants ringfenced for registered charities, and not to be spent on salaries, running costs, general appeals, or to promote political or religious groups.

Charities which have received grants in the past two years – such as Swindon Women’s Aid, which received £3,700 last year for a children’s play area – cannot re-apply.

Hospices were a theme of the Gannett grants this year across the country, with Dorothy House Hospice, in Bradford-on-Avon, being awarded £8,558 for special chairs.