A woman whose mother was able to die at home thanks to LOROS nurses has told of the "wonderful" treatment she received. Great-grandmother and mum-of-nine Helen Grant died a month after being diagnosed with bowel cancer in April 2008.

By the time doctors were aware of her illness the disease had spread to her liver and there was nothing they could do. The 69-year-old, who had lived at her home in Braunstone for around 50 years, was adamant about spending her final days there. Her daughter, Heather, said it was thanks to LOROS nurses, who at times made three visits a day, that this was possible.

Heather, who lives in the Western Park area of Leicester, said: "We found out about the cancer and then it took a few days for them to find out it had spread. They said then that there was nothing more they could do. We were all devastated. She was reluctant to have LOROS coming in at first. She kept saying they'd take her to hospital and that would be it, but I kept broaching the subject as I knew we needed help looking after her. We got a nurse to come and speak to her and she agreed and she absolutely loved them. She was in a lot of pain and had a lot of sickness but they took it away. We only had four weeks but they would have been a lot worse without LOROS. Sometimes they were out three times a day, and if we wanted them at night we only had to pick up the phone. They were just amazing; the care they give is from the heart."

Helen died on June 4 last year. Heather, 53, said: "LOROS made it possible for her to die at home, which is what she wanted. All of mum's children cared for her; eight of us live in Leicester and one in Cheshire, but he came at weekends. I don't know if we'd have been able to do it without LOROS. They were just fantastic and it continued after she died. One of my sisters had counselling and I'm still in touch with one of the nurses now. At mum's funeral we raised £330 in donations for LOROS and we had a garden sale of lots of her things and that raised £1,000. We want to help them."

Heather is supporting our Leicester Mercury LOROS Appeal, which aims to raise £450,000 towards the cost of an extension which has provided 11 more single-bed rooms at the hospice.

Funds raised from a bucket collection at Leicester City's 125th anniversary match against Plymouth Argyle on Saturday have now been counted, and have helped boost the appeal by £1,031.31.This adds to the £2,500 already raised by Mercury readers and the £50,000 left to the appeal in a former patient's will, taking our current total to £53,531.31.