HOSPITAL staff cheered Thwaites' Brewery after they funded a conference aimed at improving medical research.

The Blackburn-based brewery's Charitable Trust donated £1,000 to Queen's Park Hospital to enable consultants, physiotherapists, nurses and other health care professionals celebrate research activity.

Gillian Bates, research and development facilitator at the Blackburn hospital, said: "The multi-disciplinary conference looked at research practice and how it might be improved.

"It was a very exciting and beneficial discussion aimed at a wide range of people who work at the hospital. We are very grateful to Thwaites for their contribution, as without it we would have had great difficulty running the event."

Of the donation, £600 was used as a prize for the best verbal presentation, £300 was awarded to the best poster presentation and £100 was used to obtain a sound system for the conference.