First look at new radiotherapy unit

Buy photos » An artist’s impression of inside the unit. (s)

THIS PICTURE offers a first look inside the new radiotherapy unit which will enable Vale cancer sufferers to receive treatment closer to home.

Work to build the unit by Worcestershire Royal Hospital remains on course to start later this year after the board of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust approved the project’s business case.

The unit's strategic partners University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust have also endorsed the plans.

Approval is still needed from the boards of NHS Midlands and East together with three clinical commissioning groups, but the decision marks another hurdle cleared on the path to opening the centre in 2014.

Cancer patients currently have to travel as far a field as Cheltenham and Wolverhampton for treatment but it is estimated the new unit will save patients about one million miles of travel every year.

Penny Venables, chief executive of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust said: “Statistics are important when arguing the case for service improvement but they do nothing to convey the human dimension of the problem which I hear about from our patients.

“We all know someone who has been affected by cancer and this scheme offers local people the best treatments available and a modern working environment for staff”.

The project includes the creation of a 401-space car park on land next to the hospital, increasing the overall number of spaces for patients, visitors and staff to 1,470.

Adel Makar, consultant urologist and lead cancer clinician for the Trust, said: "This is exciting news for the people of Worcestershire and what has been a long held dream will at last start becoming a reality."

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