We are getting there.

The first stage of a multi-million pound project to boost treatment for patients suffering from life-threatening blood disorders has officially opened.

Now Daily Echo readers are being urged to dig deep and help ensure the second stage gets completed so patients fighting cancer have the best chance of beating the disease.

So far you have helped raised more than £600,000 for the Daily Echo-backed Red and White Appeal but £1.8m is still needed to make the outpatient unit a reality.

State-of-the-art The government’s cancer tsar, Professor Mike Richards, had the honour of opening the new inpatient bone marrow unit at Southampton General Hospital.

The new £5m unit, funded by the Department of Health, provides nine extra state-of-the-art isolation rooms, complete with private bathroom and entertainment systems, for patients suffering from leukaemia and other life-threatening blood disorders.

The rooms will be used by patients who are undergoing bone marrow transplant treatment, a procedure that can take four to six weeks, with patients spending this time in isolation to avoid any infection while their immune system is low.

The second stage of this project is a specialist outpatient treatment centre, funded by the Southampton Hospital Charity’s Red and White Appeal.

The Daily Echo-backed appeal needs to raise £2.2m to build the unit next to the new inpatient extension.

The day case unit will treat haematology patients who need to be closely monitored by the specialist medical team at the hospital, in the months following a bone marrow transplant.

Carrie Bolt, from Southampton Hospital Charity, said: “We are delighted that the inpatient facilities have been opened by Professor Richards and it is fantastic that patients are now benefiting from these purpose built facilities.

“It is vital that we now complete the second stage of the project.