SCALP-COOLING caps made in Huddersfield for cancer patients are being rolled out in all UK hospitals, thanks to a charity’s helping hand.

Fenay Bridge firm Paxman Coolers has received the backing of a breast cancer charity, Walk the Walk, to supply cancer units around the country with 600 hair loss prevention systems over the next five years.

And to celebrate teaming up with the good cause the owners, brothers Glenn and Paul Paxman, were invited to Clarence House in London to rub shoulders with Prince Charles.

The pair – who started the company in 1997 after Glenn’s late wife, Sue, was diagnosed with breast cancer – were guests at a party to celebrate the charity’s 10th birthday.

The new project will net the company an extra £5m.

It will also see the silicone caps – worth about £8,000 each – help stop thousands of chemo-therapy patients across the country losing their hair.

Kathryn Trescott, the firm’s operations manager, said: “It is fantastic news for the company and for cancer sufferers who don’t have to go through the major trauma of hair loss.

“Our success rates are excellent, but because it is not seen as life-saving treatment that seems to be where the problem lies. A lot of the caps are bought by charitable donations.

“Yorkshire is pretty good, but there are so many sufferers who haven’t got caps and don’t know they don't need to lose their hair. The charity wants to make sure that every eligible cancer patient can use the treatment.”

Chemotherapy patients at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and the Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax are already benefiting from the hair-saving equipment, which pumps liquid coolant around specially-designed silicone caps.

The Penistone Road company was introduced to Walk the Walk after some of its staff took part in its annual 26-mile Playtex Moonwalk in 2003.