As part of its local community support programme, food packaging company, Proseal, has donated £2 million, to be shared equally between the building of the state-of-the art Christie Cancer Centre at Macclesfield General Hospital and East Cheshire Hospice for the care of people with life-limiting illnesses.

Proseal directors and co-founders Steve Malone and Robbie Hargreaves, who set up the company in 1998, say the donation is on behalf of all its employees, whose hard work and dedication have enabled it to make this important contribution.

“We have enjoyed immense success and growth in the 20 years since Proseal was established, and none of this could have been achieved without the fantastic support and commitment of everyone within the business.

“Proseal therefore wanted to give something back to the local community. We chose the Christie Cancer Centre and East Cheshire Hospice as the recipients because of the vital work they do, which any of us at Proseal, as well as our families and friends, may have to call on at some point.”

Louise Stimson, head of Fundraising at The Christie charity, said: “We are absolutely delighted with such a generous donation from Proseal UK toward our new Christie Cancer Centre at Macclesfield.

“This donation is a huge boost to our campaign which we launched in March to raise £23 million to build a state-of-the-art new cancer centre in the heart of East Cheshire and we are extremely grateful to everybody at Proseal.”

The new Christie Cancer Centre, which is earmarked to open in Summer 2021, will provide cancer care closer to home for more than 1,500 new patients each year, bringing together essential cancer services into one purpose-built unit.

It will offer local specialist access to radiotherapy, curative and palliative chemotherapy, holistic support and outpatient services as well as delivering support and information services. The cancer centre will also run early phase clinical trials enabling patients to access new treatments as they become available.

East Cheshire Hospice staff.

Karyn Johnston, East Cheshire Hospice director, said on receipt of the gift: “I am humbled to accept this generous donation from Proseal.

“As a small local charity, we rely on our community and corporate partners for more than 85% of our funding, so this represents a massive boost to our future plans. The team at Proseal have been generous supporters of the Hospice for a number of years, working alongside our amazing What Women Want supporter group.

“On behalf of all the patients and families whose end of life experience will be improved by this gift, I say thank you.”