Captain Tom Moore becomes Just Giving’s biggest-ever fundraiser as he raises £16m for NHS Exclusive: Mr Moore has passed Stephen Sutton MBE, a teenage blogger and charity activist

A 99-year-old veteran who is raising funds for the NHS by walking 100 lengths of his garden has become the biggest individual fundraiser ever, the website JustGiving has said.

Mr Moore, who lives with his family in Bedfordshire, hoped to raise £1,000 for the NHS by walking 25 metre laps of his garden.

By Thursday morning a total of more than £16 million had been donated by hundreds of thousands of supporters.

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Record fundraising effort

The figure beats that of Stephen Sutton MBE, a teenage blogger and charity activist, known for his fundraising efforts for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Mr Sutton, who died in 2014, raised more than £5 million by the second anniversary of his death and was posthumously honoured by the Queen.

The late teen’s mum, Jane, said: “I wanted to be one of the first to send my congratulations to Captain Tom Moore.”

She added: “My understanding is that Stephen’s total, until today, was the highest total raised by an individual on JustGiving. That baton has now passed to Captain Tom and could not have gone to a more worthy individual.”

‘They deserve every penny of it’

On Wednesday morning Mr Moore told the BBC: “Completely out of this world! Thank you so much to all you people who subscribe to the National Health Service because, for every penny that we get, they deserve every one of it.”

His daughter, Hannah Ingram-Moore, said: “He’s embraced this adventure as the next stage of his life.

“I believe that life is all about purpose and, whilst he’s had a life full of purpose, he did fall and break his hip and became much less independent than he had been for the preceding 98 years. And what you have done, everyone who’s supported him, is give him his next purpose.”

Money raised by Mr Moore and others for NHS Charities Together is being spent on wellbeing packs for NHS staff, rest and recuperation rooms, electronic devices to enable hospital patients to keep in contact with loved ones and a support community groups help discharged patients.

Donations can be made at www.justgiving.com/fundraising/tomswalkforthenhs