THE special care baby unit at Great Western Hospital will have eight brand new incubators instead of five because the manufacturers were blown away by how much support the Brighter Futures appeal was given.

The original campaign was to raise £173,000 to replace five of the 10 incubators with state-of-the-art Dräger Babyleo neonatal incubators.

But it sailed past its target by almost £20,000 and Dräger was so taken aback by the support from local people that it has given the hospital a discount so that they can buy more.

Cat Newman, head of fundraising at Brighter Futures explained how it happened: “We initially had a target of raising £175,000 to try and replace five out of ten of our incubators at the SPBU.

“We ended up hitting our target at Christmas which was amazing, but people kept coming forward asking if they could keep fundraising as they had planned lots of events to help us.

“So, the fundraising kept going and by the end of January people had raised over £193,500.

“Dräger, which manufactures the incubators was so surprised by the response from the local community and the amount raised that they’ve offered us a discounted price meaning that we can now replace eight instead of five.”

Cat said it will transform the way the hospital cares for premature babies: “We can’t thank Dräger enough because the old incubators we have are in need of an update as technology has moved on.

“It means that parents will now be able to do something we call kangaroo care, with the walls of the incubators able to fold down and not lose temperature, allowing them to hold and touch their children.

“It also allows them to plug in their phones to play music, record a bedtime story or even their voices for the baby to hear which is really important for early development care.

“It’s been incredible,” said Cat. We raise money alongside the radio therapy unit, and we weren’t sure people would be willing or able to raise funds for both. But we’ve been blown away by the generosity of the people of Swindon, so a big thank you to them as well.

Emma Hancox from Dräger said: “For me, it was great seeing the community come together and raise money for such an important cause. It really was nice to see former patients, their families and just normal members of the public work to raise such a fantastic amount of money.

“We’ve worked really closely with Brighter Futures and we’re happy to see everyone’s hard work pay off.”