First patient days away from proton beam therapy on NHS
A CANCER patient is now “days away” from becoming the first to receive high energy proton beam therapy at a state of the art NHS facility, it was announced yesterday.
The treatment, which targets cancers with precision and causes less damage to surrounding tissue than other types of radiotherapy, will begin later this month.
It has been available overseas for eligible NHS patients since 2008 but the treatment at The Christie in Manchester is the first time it has been offered in England.
NHS England’s national cancer director Cally Palmer hailed it as “a milestone”.
She said: “There have been huge advances in precision cancer treatment from which hundreds of thousands of patients are now benefiting.” The Department of Health and NHS England are funding two centres in Manchester and London which will each treat up to 750 patients annually. The Christie’s chief executive Roger Spencer said: “To be just days away from offering high energy proton beam therapy in the UK for the first time is really exciting. “Patients will benefit from treatment being available closer to them, resulting in less upheaval during an extremely stressful time.”
University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is expected to begin offering the treatment in summer 2020. The NHS has also invested £130million in upgrading radiotherapy equipment, including buying 80 better machines in hospitals in two years.