PARLIAMENTARIANS past and present joined forces to pay tribute to more than half-a-a-century of community support for a local hospital.
Former Foreign Secretary Lord Hague and his successor as the MP for Richmond, Rishi Sunak, joined the celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the Friends of the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton.
Mr Sunak said: “It is quite something that an organisation that started out as an idea dreamed up around someone’s kitchen table should raise so much money and engage the local community in such a positive way over so many years.”
He praised the Friends for the £500,000 they had raised most recently for the new MRI scanner at the hospital.
“There are lots of good things happening at the Friarage at the moment and the Friends are involved in so many of them,” he added.
Lord Hague echoed Mr Sunak’s remarks and said that in his 26 years as the area’s MP he had only heard good things about the hospital and the Friends had been vital to its success.
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