WE’RE there! The Hospice at Home Appeal has hit its £110,000 target.

Today The Bolton News, which launched the campaign in January last year with Bolton Hospice, can reveal that after 14 months of hard work and generosity from local people, we have reached the total.

The money will make a huge difference to the Hospice at Home service run by Bolton Hospice, enabling many more people to be cared for in their final weeks at home, in familiar surroundings and with their loved ones by their side.

It will be spent by Bolton Hospice to increase the number of people who can be cared for at home who are suffering from life-limiting illnesses.

Staff do not just provide care for people at the hospice in Queens Park Street, off Chorley New Road — they also help look after people who want to remain at home with their family.

Bolton Hospice, working with district nurses, GPs and Macmillan nurses, help make this possible.

But the additional cost to the hospice means not everyone who wants the service can be cared for at home.

In recent years, the Hospice at Home service has become increasingly popular — especially over Christmas, Easter and other family occasions when people want to be with their loved ones.

Now, thanks to the appeal, more people will receive care from Bolton Hospice nurses in their own home.

Hospice chief executive, Leigh Vallance said: “This is a fantastic achievement and we are very much looking forward to a continuation of the valuable Hospice at Home service. I am pleased that the hospice can continue doing our great work within the community.”

Melanie Blain, a senior sister working for the Hospice at Home team, added: “We just want to say thank you to everybody that has contributed and fundraised for us. We are really looking forward to helping more people.

“I would also like to thank The Bolton News, because without their support, the campaign would not have raised the profile of this service that we run and brought it to the attention of the public.

“It is a resource that they can use and access for end of life care.”

Senior staff nurse Dawn Raby said the support from the public had been “overwhelming”.

Alice Atkinson, head of fundraising at Bolton Hospice, added: “I would like to say thank you to The Bolton News and to all the readers for everything that they have done to raise funds. Despite the fact that times are hard, there are still people in our community that want to support us and we would not be here without these people.”

Hundreds of people have helped the appeal reach its target by getting behind the campaign and giving generously.

There have been bake sales, skydives, golf tournaments, charity choir performances, sponsored runs, bike rides and swimathons, charity hair cuts, raffles and fundraising evenings, which have all contributed to the overall total.

The Bolton public really got behind the campaign and a number of celebrities also gave it their full support, including boxer Amir Khan and comedian Peter Kay.

IIan Savage, Editor-in-chief of The Bolton News, said: “The Bolton News, like Bolton Hospice, is at the heart of the community, so we are delighted we have helped to raise this fantastic amount of money.

“It just shows that, despite the current economic climate, the people of Bolton will dig deep for such a vital cause.”

But it was ordinary people, whose lives had been affected by terminal illnesses, who shared their stories about the care they had received from the Hospice at Home nurses with The Bolton News who really got the appeal going.

Brave grandmother Hilda Heaton, who knew she did not have long to live, shared her experiences with the hospice team and said they had taken away her “fear of dying”.

Mrs Heaton, from Blackrod, who died in April, aged 80, said she wanted the campaign to do well so other people could be cared for in their own homes.

Her husband, Milton, told The Bolton News that he was “delighted” the appeal had hit its target.

Mr Heaton said: “I can’t fault the nurses, they were really good and Hilda would be really pleased.”

Widow Barbara Sharp, whose husband Jack was cared for by Hospice at Home nurses in their Great Lever Home until he died in February last year aged 81, said she could not praise the nurses enough.

She added: “Without the nurses, I couldn’t have managed, but it made all the difference having him home. He was smiling again and he was happy to be at home.

“If you have your loved one at home they have far more love and you can see them all the time.

“It made all the difference and it meant I could kiss him good night.”