Roseacre schoolgirl cooks up fundraising ideas

And the 10-year-old pupil at Roseacre Primary School got together with her friends to hold an Easter-themed bake sale.

They raised more than £122 for the Rosemere Cancer Foundation.

Along with Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s own charity Blue Skies, Rosemere aims to raise the £150,000 needed to convert a disused operating theatre at the rear of the hospital’s Oncology and Haematology Day Units into a 999 call or walk-in assessment and treatment centre – exclusively for cancer patients.

Niamh and her friends already held a successful bake sale at school in February and decided they wanted to do it again.

Niamh has been raising money for cancer charities for about four years, since her grandad was diagnosed with cancer and underwent treatment at Rosemere Cancer Centre.

Her mum Karen Darby said: “Niamh loves helping people and she really loves baking.

“She had great help from Megan Bennett, Maisie Goodson, Libby McCann and Aimee Gale.”

The new unit, which will be run by doctors and nurses from the hospital’s Acute Oncology Team and which is scheduled to open later this year, will enable local cancer patients to receive immediate specialist care.

This will by-pass the Vic’s busy A&E department they currently attend, if their condition worsens, they fall ill or suffer treatment side-effects.

It is estimated more than 500 local cancer patients a year will benefit from attending the new acute cancer triage unit, relieving pressure on A&E.

“The number of patients needing hospital admission is also expected to fall.