Cancer care boost

Construction work has started at Christie’s new £17million radiotherapy centre in Oldham — and it will save patients the equivalent of travelling to the moon and back in only one year.

Based at the Royal Oldham Hospital, it will be the first in a network of Christie radiotherapy centres, where local patients will be able to access radiotherapy treatment from experts much closer to home.

Christie’s south Manchester site is the only centre in Greater Manchester to provide radiotherapy, a specialist procedure which uses high energy radiation beams to destroy cancerous cells.

Cancer patients from Oldham have to travel up to three hours for five weeks or longer on a daily basis for treatment.

Christie’s plans to build a network of new centres so most people in the region will be within 30 minutes of a radiotherapy centre.

The new centre will have two £1.3million radiotherapy machines and other high-tech equipment.

Christie doctors, specialist radiographers, nurses and other medical experts will be able to treat 70 patients a day.

Caroline Shaw, Christie’s chief executive, said: “We are pleased that the main building phase for our centre is starting, helping us to deliver our ambition of bringing Christie cancer treatment close to people’s homes.”

The new centre should be open by the end of 2009.