Dorothy House patients can now sit comfortably in new specialist tilt and space chairs having been awarded a grant of more than £8,000 by the Gannett Foundation to buy them.

The hospice in Winsley applied for the grant from the charitable arm of the publishers of the Wiltshire Times in September and learned in November it had been given £8,558 to help buy the chairs for its day patient unit.

The unit supports up to 55 patients a week and the 15 new chairs meet new infection control standards, which mean they are wipeable, breathable and offer much better pressure relief to patients.

Pauline Lynch, 65 who comes to the DPU every Monday said: “This is the third week that I have been sitting in them and I think they are absolutely gorgeous. My cancer has spread to my bones and it is important that the chairs make my bones comfortable which these chairs do.”

Tudor Williams, 85 shares the same view. He said: “I spend a lot of time sitting down and I haven’t been coming to the DPU long, but from what I’ve heard, these chairs are much better than the last ones.”

Christine Falkner, 62 added that she was surprised how many chairs were bought with the funding. She said: “I’ve only been coming for a few weeks, but I like the height of the arms on these chairs which you don’t usually find.

“Some of them are automatic and that is really important when you want to relax.”

The new additions allow patients who may be having an invasive treatment such as a blood transfusion or pain relief infusions to remain in the DPU rather than being excluded in a treatment room.

Sarah Cooley, a nurse in the DPU said: “We are very thankful that we were able to secure the funding from the Gannett Foundation to help buy the chairs because we were quite worried that we wouldn’t be able to.

“A lot of people come to the DPU each week and many have said how the memory foam cushions support them where you want them to.”