An NHS manager at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has raised £1,200 for a Basingstoke cancer charity to mark her 50th birthday.

The Pink Place offers free wellbeing support and services to adults affected by cancer and their partners.

Caroline Nash, palliative care befriending service manager, , raised the amount through a fundraiser on her Facebook page for her 50th birthday, asking her family, friends and colleagues to donate instead of giving her presents.

The Facebook campaign took two weeks and the amount raised will be paid by Facebook into The Pink Place account at the end of October.

Caroline was also the guest speakerfor the charity earlier this month and talked about the vital role of the Befriending Service at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. At the end of the talk Jacky Boots, chair of trustees, Kay Alsop, operations manager, and Christine Griffiths, fundraising and events manager at The Pink Place, and the cancer patients who were also present during the Zoom session were grateful for her kind gesture of support and held up personalised ‘Thank You’ notices made by them.

Caroline said: “Working in Palliative Care and having experienced cancer myself, I know local charities that offer support are greatly needed. I felt I would rather support a local charity like The Pink Place than one of the big well known ones, who get a lot of national support and that ‘Thank you’ really does mean a lot.”

Carolinelearnt about The Pink Place when she volunteered at St Michael's Hospice.

She was struck by the charity's idea of providing free wellbeing services, support, pampering and counselling to people with a cancer diagnosis. She understood how beneficial these services would be to those whose lives were affected by cancer.

Kay Alsop, operations manager at The Pink Place, said: “The Pink Place is particularly reliant on donations since the coronavirus pandemic to meet the growing demands on our services since the initial lockdown and Caroline’s generosity has helped enormously."

In June 2010, The Pink Place was created for women with breast cancer. In September 2013, the charity was open to all types of cancers. In September 2016, The Pink Place created The Blue Space dedicated to men affected by cancer.

Through the support and counselling sessions, The Pink Place aims to combat the feelings of fear and anxiety and will continue to evaluate and adapt their services to the changing needs of those who the charity supports during the coronavirus pandemic.