A TEA party has served up boost for local palliative care in the Borders.

Almost £2,000 was raised at the Friends of PATCH function by Denise and Graeme Brebner from Earlston last week.

Palliation and The Caring Hospital is the first charity to support 24/7 specialist palliative care for patients in hospitals around the country.

So far in 2017 PATCH has funded specialist training for 12 hospital nurses from the Borders General Hospital as well as Kelso and Duns community hospitals.

The Brebners' tea party at Sorrowlessfield Farm served up a delicious spread of sandwiches and home-made cakes for guests.

The tea party also included a raffle, a sale of designer clothes and a sale of hand-knitted tea cosies.

Dr Pamela Levack, medical director of PATCH told us: “We are so grateful to all the Friends of PATCH for all their hard work in staging the tea party, including the gentlemen who remained on good terms after erecting a marquee in the rain.

“The funds raised at the tea party will be used in the Borders and in addition to the enhanced palliative care training, it is hoped that we will purchase a pull down bed in one of our community hospitals, so that a friend or member of family of a patient who is dying may spend the night.

“When a group of people decide to help our charity, good things really do happen.”

PATCH-funded specialist palliative care training brings together nurses from the Margaret Kerr Unit at Borders General Hospital and local community hospitals with specialist staff from St Columba’s Hospice in Edinburgh.

Helen Legge, chair of the Friends of PATCH in the Borders, said: “The aim of PATCH is to ensure that patients in hospital who are very ill and may be dying, get the same sort of care they and their families would get in a hospice.”