A charity fighting to save children's heart surgery at Glenfield Hospital has raised more than £152,000 for life-saving equipment.

Heartlink, which supports children born with heart defects, and their families, has spent the money on two specialist mobile incubators, worth £50,000 each, for the intensive care unit at Glenfield.

It means doctors and nurses can take the incubators in an ambulance to other hospitals to collect poorly babies needing treatment.

Heartlink has also bought eight new monitors, worth £52,000, to be used on the children's heart ward at the hospital.

Carmel Hunt, matron of children's heart services at Glenfield, said: "We are extremely grateful to Heartlink for its support.

"These incubators give us state-of-the-art equipment to transfer about 300 babies a year from across the country for specialist treatment at Glenfield."

In the past year, a further £98,000 has been raised by Heart Link to support children's heart services. Graham Brown, from the charity, said: "We are very grateful to all the parents, patients and families who have helped us raise this money.

"We are also grateful to our corporate sponsors."

Mr Brown, from Wigston, whose own daughters have been treated on the unit, is also helping to spearhead the campaign to save Glenfield children's heart service.

There are fears it could close as part of a national review of children's heart surgery in England, which will see the 11 existing centres cut to just six or seven.

He is urging people to turn out to public meetings being held at the Walkers Stadium on Thursday.

Mr Brown said: "We need everyone's help to make sure this service is saved – not just for people in Leicestershire but across the whole of the East Midlands.

"They can do this by going to a public consultation meeting and by replying to the questionnaire."

Figures show just under 2,000 people from the East Midlands have so far replied to the questionnaire compared to nearly 4,000 in the South Central region, where Southampton Hospital is fighting to keep its children's heart surgery service.

The meetings will be held at the Walkers Stadium on Thursday, from 3pm until 5pm and from 6pm until 8pm.

For more information, visit:

www.specialisedservices.nhs.uk