PLANS to provide patients with individual wards at a hospital near Bungay have been boosted with a donation totalling more than one third of the cost.Last year it was decided to convert two four-bed wards at All Hallows Hospital in Ditchingham into two single rooms with en suites.

PLANS to provide patients with individual wards at a hospital near Bungay have been boosted with a donation totalling more than one third of the cost.

Last year it was decided to convert two four-bed wards at All Hallows Hospital in Ditchingham into two single rooms with en suites.

Norwich-based Geoffrey Watling charity has now announced it will donate �25,000 towards converting the second ward, after the first ward conversion was completed six months ago.

Donna Oakins, who fundraises for the hospital alongside Friends of All Hallows Hospital, said the donation was “fantastic” and that the work would be completed once the full amount of �72,000, had been raised.

She said the board of All Hallows Healthcare Trust and the sisters from the Community of All Hallows, who decided on the conversion, felt that being able to offer a single room to patients was a necessity, and that it helped with issues such as infection control, privacy and dignity, and improved sleep patterns.

She added that confused patients would be cared for better in a single room and would not be disruptive to other patients, and that single wards would give relatives of those receiving palliative care the chance to stay to help care for them.

Over the next few years the hospital has plans to build three extra single rooms, to return the number of beds to 30.