CANCER patient Derek Mathers is convinced he received the best treatment in the world last year at Worcestershire Royal Hospital’s new oncology centre.

He’s one of seven prostate cancer patients who have turned up on my visit to see the £22.5 million oncology centre, marking its first anniversary, to make sure I get the message. They can’t speak highly enough about the state of the art technology, the building and environment but particularly the staff, who they regard as the best.

Mr Mathers, an engineer who lives in the Cotswolds, said: “I do not know where they got this team from but they are the ‘A’ team. I am confident the treatment I had here was the best in the world.”

He and another of these prostate patients Trevor Phillips, who have all become friends since meeting at the oncology centre while undergoing treatment, were so impressed with the staff that they paid for them to have a meal out at Worcester restaurant Bindles last year.

“We felt so strongly that the treatment we had was beyond what we expected, we wanted to express our appreciation. I had advanced prostate cancer and I know I have had the best treatment there can be,” he added.

It will be three years before he knows exactly how successful the treatment has been but he says he feels fine at the moment and is starting to get his energy back.

His abnormally high prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level was picked up by his GP when he was diagnosed with polymyalgia rheumatica – a muscle condition. “My doctor said there was a new oncology centre being opened in Worcester with the latest technology. I understand technology and I went for the latest. I am very pleased with my choice.”

Mr Phillips, a retired engineer from Worcester, discovered his PSA levels were a bit high about five years ago following a routine blood test. After a couple of years the levels had risen so he had a biopsy at Kidderminster and discovered he had cancer.

An MRI scan revealed little nodules on his prostate which ruled out surgery. He started hormone treatment and then began coming to the new oncology centre for radiotherapy in March last year. He had radiotherapy every working day for 37 days and his PSA dropped to 0.5 ng/mL – well within the normal range. After another three months it dropped to less than 01. ng/mL.

“I am a very happy bunny,” he commented.

Radiotherapy services manager Mrs Michelle Price said during the centre’s inaugural year it has treated about 1,100 patients with different types of cancers – 90 per cent of cancer patients have radiotherapy.

The centre does not treat children with cancer, as that requires special facilities, or anyone requiring total body irradiation for anything to do with blood disorders.

The majority of patients using the centre will be treated and cured, she said. But others, who cannot be cured, receive palliative treatment to manage their symptoms.

The oncology centre currently has three large linear accelerators and will be able to accommodate two more in future as the local population grows and demand for the service increases. The technical term is ‘future proofing’.

There are also plans for the chemotherapy and haematology departments, currently in the main hospital building, to move to the oncology centre so that all the cancer services on site are under one roof.

The new centre not only enables Worcestershire cancer patients to receive treatment closer to home – previously they had faced daily trips to Coventry, Cheltenham or Wolverhampton – but ultimately they won’t even have to set foot in the main Worcestershire Royal Hospital building.

About 100 new staff from across the country were recruited to work in the centre – there are 28 radiographers, 15 medical physicists, eight clinical oncologists, nursing and administration staff. They came from as far afield as Sheffield and Manchester to Bristol and Torquay, as well as from local oncology centres like Cheltenham, Birmingham and Coventry.

Mrs Helen O’Connell, directorate manager for the oncology centre, said: “Nationally there is a shortage of oncology consultants, radiographers and physicists but we are fully staffed. It is a rare opportunity to build a centre. It has been really exciting and the whole team here has been pulling together to make it work.”

Mrs Price had previously worked at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading. “I came here because of the opportunity to develop a brand new service. There have only been three new centres in the country in the past 10 years.

“It is a once in a lifetime opportunity professionally to come to something like this and it has attracted people who want to develop best practices.”

The centre has been developed in partnership with University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust. Mrs Price said: “We have matched equipment and some of the staff get their training at Coventry. The idea is that the two services work together to develop best practice.

“Resources are tight in the NHS. We are pooling our resources at the two centres and sharing knowledge and expertise. We have some very experienced consultants.”

She added: “We have a blend of the technology and a nice environment for patients and staff. I am really proud of everything everyone has achieved. It is a real privilege to be part of it and everyone has worked really hard. I feel we are getting good results but there is lots more to do. Now we need to look after the staff so they stay.”

Mrs O’Connell said: “It has been a fantastic project and we have an incredibly good team of people. The patients have been great and the patient feedback has been good.

“It is nice coming here and seeing the patients in the waiting room talking to each other and getting on well and meeting after finishing their treatment. The whole feedback we get from all patients is that it is a nice place to come.”

“For those we do not cure, we are trying to improve the quality of life and this is what this is all about.”

She said the idea was to make it a calming and pleasant environment for people who are going through a very traumatic time in their life. “The environment means so much for people. There has been a lot of research around how the environment effects people and their treatment. The design and colour scheme makes a difference to the way people recover.”

Patient groups were involved in the design of the building to make sure they had the features they wanted like a café, a little shop, a Macmillan Cancer Support information centre, the colour scheme, lots of natural light, plants and how people get from one part of the building to another - dignity and discretion were paramount when considering some of the building’s design features.

There are large photographs of scenes from Worcester’s public parks, taken by local art students to bring the outdoors into the building, prominently displayed and there are even light boxes above each linear accelerator with images of clouds and blue sky.

“It has been a fantastic project for Worcester. It has been good for patients and for the public to have something around here and good for staff. We are all really proud of it and it has been really successful,” said Mrs O’Connell.

“I think this design, done around the patients, is what all oncology centres aspire to but we have actually achieved it here because of the patients’ involvement in the design.”

Mrs Price and staff at Coventry last week gave a presentation about Worcester’s new oncology centre at the National Radiotherapy Conference in Birmingham. “To twin oncology centres is unique. Nationally other centres are looking at us and NHS England is looking at this. We can make cost savings and do research and clinical trials.”