A ROMSEY nursing home is celebrating after raising hundreds of pounds to buy a new community defibrillator.

Staff from Fryers House, Fryers Close, raised just under £1,000 for the life-saving tool which was unveiled to the public by Test Valley mayor, Martin Hatley.

Care co-ordinator at Fryers House, Trish Moody, said: "I am absolutely chuffed to bits about the new defibrillator.

"One of the nurses, called Lee Rennie, came up with the idea in May to raise money for it when I became the new care co-ordinator, because I thought we had got to get Fryers House out into the community.

"We had a grant from the British Heart Foundation which helped us and I think in that part of Romsey the nearest defibrillator is at the dentist.

"We have got a lot of older people in the area and I thought it would be good to have a piece of equipment in that part of Romsey."

The 55-year-old from Mercer Way added: "To help raise the money, we had a fete on August 3 which we worked really hard for and Caroline Nokes opened the event.

"Romsey Men's Shed also donated just under £100 on the day and we had Romsey Ukulele Group playing at the fete."

Now the nursing home will be able to offer training sessions for how to use a defibrillator, with the first one being held on Tuesday, January 21 at Fryers House.

The training session will start at 2pm and will teach residents "how to use the defibrillator and how it can be safely used to save a life", according to Trish.

Trish added: "Hopefully we will get some feedback from the first training session and we may run another one in February.

"If I can use the defibrillator then anyone can."

To be eligible to apply for a public access defibrillator, the British Heart Foundation states the equipment must be freely accessible to the public 24/7 and be placed externally in an unlocked and un-coded cabinet.

They also state there must be a clear need for the device, for example the defibrillator would be in a place with high footfall or in a rural area.