Generous people of Burnley back appeal to provide dedicated NHS workers with treats and goodies as they celebrate New Year at work

The kind hearted community responded to a call from Burnley mum, Melanie Hunt, who wanted to treat the doctors and nurses who battled to save her teenage son, Ethan, after he was struck down wth sepsis.

And Melanie and her husband, Andrew, delivered the hampers to staff in the resuscitation and intensive care units at Blackburn Royal and the Cardiothoracic Critical Care Unit at Manchester's Wythenshawe Hospital.

Ethan was treated at both hospitals before he died in March last year aged just 16.

Hundreds of items were donated for the appeal, including packet and tinned soups and meals and hot and cold drinks. Delivered just before Christmas there are 260 staff working on the critical care unit at Wythenshawe. The unit has 31 beds with two staff to each one constantly

Melanie came up with the idea for the food hampers as the staff have to queue up at a public canteen which eats into their precious break time.

Melanie said: "We want to thank everyone who donated to the appeal, we received so many wonderful items and the staff at the hospitals were delighted to receive them."

Ethan died a month after falling seriously ill. His parents, along with Ethan's older sister, Jodie, kept a constant vigil at his bedside where doctors placed him in an induced coma after he contracted the deadly sepsis bug, a life threatening condition that flares up when the body’s response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs.

Surgeons had to make the heartbreaking decision to amputate both of Ethan's legs as all the tissue had died.

The whole town was moved by the death of the bright, kind and sporty teenager who would spend hours riding all over Lancashire.

In September a bench dedicated to the teenager was unveiled at Rowley beauty spot near Worsthorne which was one of Ethan's favourite places to go riding.

Fund raising for the bench was carried out by students and staff at Blessed Trinity RC College where Ethan had been in his final year studying for his GCSEs.