Plans submitted for new ‘nuclear’ cancer imaging facility

Richard Evans, local democracy reporter

A health board has submitted plans for a new radioactive imaging centre to treat cancer patients.

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board has applied to Denbighshire County Council’s planning department, seeking permission for a ‘Nuclear Medicine Facility’ at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, on Rhuddlan Road, Bodelwyddan.

If granted permission, the facility will be built on land at the site currently used as a service yard and for storage.

The new unit would be an extension to the existing hospital with landscaping and external works to provide additional car parking, creating 18 fulltime jobs.

Nuclear medicine services

In a planning statement, the health board commented: “Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board’s radiology service currently provides nuclear medicine services across the acute hospital sites, with three permanent Gamma camera rooms and a mobile PET-CT located at Wrexham Maelor hospital three days per week.

“It is a specialised form of imaging involving the administration of small amounts of intravenously injected radioactive pharmaceuticals or radionuclides. The majority of the patients referred for imaging are cancer patients who will also be attending the North Wales Cancer Treatment Centre at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd.

“The health board have identified a series of issues with this service configuration which make it unsustainable in both the short and long term. This project provides an opportunity to improve the quality of the service and to ensure its resilience, consolidating services in a single centre of excellence for Nuclear Medicine at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd.”

Neighbours have been consulted, and the plans will likely be debated at a future Denbighshire planning committee meeting at the council’s Ruthin County Hall HQ.