Prickly patients could soon be getting extra care and attention at a purpose-built hospital for hedgehogs.

Pauline Hindmarch, of Topcliffe, near Thirsk, caring for a hedgehog. Picture: Richard Doughty

Animal lover Pauline Hindmarch is hoping to build the unit, in the back garden of her North Yorkshire home, to care for sick and orphaned hedgehogs.

Pauline, of Topcliffe, near Thirsk, started nursing the creatures when a neighbour brought her two baby hedgehogs last year. Word of her healing hands has spread and she now has up to eight at any one time.

She said: "The vet sends little babies or injured or poorly hedgehogs to me and now the villagers know we take in hedgehogs but we have only got a potting shed to put them in.

"Some of the youngsters are hopeless at fending for themselves, so we feed them up and keep them warm, or they might have parasites living in their gut or their lungs. But anything I think the vet should see goes to the vet.

"We want to have a hospital with a fridge for the medicine and a microscope and a little outside run."

The hedgehogs are released into the wild when they have been nursed back to health. But Pauline, who will run the hospital with husband David, said they were only able to cope with a handful at any one time, and did not want to be inundated with patients.

She said: "They are fascinating creatures, but we can only have a certain number, and if we over-extend ourselves they will not be getting the attention they need."

Pauline said they were also looking for contributions towards building the hospital plus donations for a microscope to help analyse the hedgehogs' droppings to check for parasites.

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