CHILDREN living in a “bubble” will have the chance to talk to their families and friends, thanks to the fundraising efforts of a young transplant patient and his family.

Kyle Spencer, now eight, was only able to chat with his sister Ashleigh, ten, and his parents through the internet for some months last year because he had to live in a clinically sealed bedroom or “bubble” following a bone marrow transplant.

Even before he was allowed to leave isolation, the Northallerton family set about making it easier for other families who have to endure the same isolation to protect their loved ones from infection following a transplant.

Now they have raised nearly £1,900 for laptop computers to be installed in “bubbles” for transplant patients to use with help from local businesses and Kyle’s school Broomfield School, Northallerton.

Kyle’s mother Cecile, a theatre nurse at Northallerton’s Friarage Hospital, said: “We’d like to thank everyone who has helped our fundraising, from friends and family members to local shops and businesses, and of course people from the school. Kyle is so happy to be able to be with his friends again at school and to feel like a ‘normal’ boy.”

Gill Johnston, fundraising manager of a foundation at Great North Children’s Hospital in Newcastle, where Kyle received his transplant and was in isolation, said: “To have the Spencer family help other children when they have been through so much themselves is just fantastic.” The foundation supports the hospital’s bone marrow transplant unit.