A MUM is launching a marathon fundraising effort for a new ward at Basingstoke hospital in memory of her daughter who fell victim to cancer.

Jane Hall, from Little London, aims to raise £75,000 half of the cost of a 10-bed chemotherapy unit which will save many fragile patients the journey to Southampton or London.

Hospital bosses have agreed that if she can raise her target sum, they will match the amount to make the ward dream a reality.

Mrs Hall, the sales director for Bewley Homes housebuilders in Baughurst, has already raised £43,000 in a few months but is now looking for more money-spinning ideas.

The grieving mother said fundraising through a charity she has set up is her way of coping with the loss a year ago of her lively and talented daughter Elizabeth who was 27.

She told The Gazette: "I feel it can make something good and positive come from something awful.

"I want something permanent as a memorial to Elizabeth. She was a very strong person who kept me on my toes.

"She was a good friend and much more than a daughter. It just seemed such a waste. I suppose I am biased but I think she was beautiful."

Mrs Hall's daughter died of cancer on July 9 last year at St Michael's Hospice in Basingstoke. She fell asleep on the afternoon of her admission and never regained consciousness.

A business development manager in Reading, she had been suffering pain for some months before the cancer was discovered in her pelvis in November 1999.

It was a rare and aggressive form and, in May last year, the bright and brave young woman was told by her doctors at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London that they could do no more for her, having tried chemo-therapy and then radiotherapy.

Mrs Hall said: "My daughter went through six months of hell. The treatment was ferocious and had many horrible side-effects. But she was very strong through it all and managed to smile and laugh.

"She even went to Ladies' Day at Ascot in a wheelchair last year without telling her friends she had cancer.

"I would like to help save families having to make the exhausting journeys to London and Southampton."

Dr Andrew Bishop, clinical director of the medicine directorate at Basingstoke hospital, said the new chemotherapy unit which will be called the Elizabeth Hall Cancer Unit would be part of the hospital's plan to keep cancer care in Basingstoke and would fit in with the Wessex cancer network of hospitals.

He said: "We need an in-patient oncology unit. This would be part of our response to the cancer plan. This sort of funding makes it that much more realisable."

Dr Bishop said the unit, likely to comprise six single rooms and a four-bed bay, will probably be created on F Floor, but the options were still being examined.

He added: "This is quite a specialised area, where people can be nursed without risk of infection. It is barrier nursing where the patients have a high degree of comfort."

Mrs Hall said anyone interested in helping raise money, or in making a donation, should ring her on 0118 970 8220.

She added: "My friends and colleagues have been a fantastic help. We have had raffles and a golf day and an estate agent just gave me £1,000. But now I need a bit more help."