A HAMPSHIRE foundation has donated £50k to a unit in Southampton's biggest hospital.

The Barker Mill Foundation has continued its support of University Hospital Southampton (UHS) with a further donation of £50,000 to Southampton Hospitals Charity.

The donation has been used to support the cost of two relatives’ rooms, providing a private environment for medical and nursing teams to meet with patients’ families and update them on patients’ treatment and progress or to break difficult news.

The funds have paid for the rooms to be built within the current General Intensive Care Unit (GICU) and for the associated costs such as decoration and providing furniture.

The rooms are just one of the enhancements which the Barker Mill Foundation is funding for the GICU at University Hospitals Southampton, which was at the forefront of providing lifesaving care to hundreds of patients with COVID-19, at the peak of the pandemic caring for over 250 patients with the illness.

Steve Harris, Chief People Officer for UHS and Southampton Hospitals Charity said: “We are so grateful to The Barker-Mill Foundation for their continued and generous support of our organisation. Being able to provide a quiet space that is also close by for relatives of patients, at what can often be a very stressful time, is going to make a real difference.”

Fiona Hall, a UHS GICU nurse, who looks after the follow up care which patients, and their loved ones, receive after discharge added: “Relatives of GICU patients are away from home, often many miles if the patient has been flown in or in the area on holiday.

"They are extremely anxious and afraid to leave their loved ones’ side when they are critically ill and there could be a deterioration at any moment.

"Being able to de-stress in a comfortable dedicated space that makes them feel welcome means they won’t have to go far from the bedside to rest or get refreshment- so often people are afraid to go downstairs to get a drink in case they miss the urgent call to go back to the bedside."