Physiotherapist Lorna Brown, 49, and nurses Claire Beazer, 39, and Sharon Loveday, 44, are undertaking the Three Peaks Challenge to raise money for the respiratory support and sleep centre - the ward where all three work at Papworth Hospital.

The trio will be walking 25 miles and climbing 1,632 metres in less than 12 hours to raise £7,500 for 31 individual televisions on the ward.
Lorna said: "None of us have ever done anything like this before. We wanted to set ourselves a challenge and obviously it's quite nice to do a challenge with a sense of purpose, and the purpose was patients badly needed individual televisions.

"Some of our patients are in for quite a long time, and they travel from quite a long way, so individuals TVs just make their stay more comfortable.

"We have to put the blame on Sharon for coming up with this challenge. We were going to do a walk around Grafham, but Sharon wanted something a lot more exciting."

The Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge is a walking challenge route, with the circuit normally starting and ending at Horton-in-Ribblesdale. It visits the three highest peaks in Yorkshire – Pen-y-ghent (691m), Whernside (728m) and Ingleborough (723m).

Lorna added: "Although we are all at some sort of fitness we have just realised the size of this task. It's pretty much like a marathon with peaks.

"We've all been through stages where the cup is half empty, but overall I think we are all looking forward to it, but we know it's going to be hard.
"We've got to know lots of people who have done it and they have all said how hard it is.
"The thing which is even more of a challenge is we have organised it all ourselves, so the possibility of us getting lost is very high."

>> Anyone interested in sponsoring the team should contact the fundraising department at Papworth Hospital on 01480 364955. www.papworthhopsital.nhs.uk