Row as private sector cancer centre announced for Wales

Martin Shipton

An international private healthcare provider has announced plans to open a purpose-built cancer centre in Wales – but a campaign group backed by NHS doctors claim it will only benefit a small, wealthy elite.

The Icon Group insists the new centre in Newport will expand regional oncology capacity in an area where demand for cancer services continues to grow.

The multi-million-pound investment will, says Icon, bring the former Rutherford Health facility back into operation, with capacity to support NHS systems and reduce travel burdens for private patients, thus strengthening regional radiotherapy and oncology services.

Reopening the centre, located at Celtic Springs, Coedkernew, Newport, will serve a general population catchment of around 1.4 million people across south Wales, says Icon.

Across the UK, one in two people will be diagnosed with cancer, and around half of all cancer patients are expected to require radiotherapy as part of their treatment. In Wales, the latest official cancer incidence data shows there were 21,006 new cancer cases in 2022, higher than the pre-pandemic annual average of 20,472 cases.

Icon says it will also reopen former Rutherford Health centres in Northumberland and Thames Valley as part of its commitment to bringing cancer care closer to home across the UK.

The Icon Cancer Centre South Wales will bring world-class radiotherapy, systemic anti-cancer therapy (SACT) – including chemotherapy, immunotherapy and targeted therapy, imaging and consulting services to patients across south Wales and will have capacity to treat more than 500 patients a year.

These services will be delivered, says Icon, by a highly skilled multidisciplinary team of up to 30 professionals across radiotherapy, radiography, medical physics, oncology nursing, pharmacy and administration drawing on Icon’s global workforce as well as creating opportunities for those in the region.

Mark Middleton, CEO of Icon Group, said: “The number of people being diagnosed with cancer continues to rise and there is a clear need to deliver the best cancer care possible, closer to home.

“Icon has a strong track record of investing responsibly in the UK to expand access to lifesaving cancer care, working in partnership with local health ecosystems in a way that genuinely supports local people.

“Healthcare infrastructure is a valuable community asset, and our focus is on ensuring that important cancer care facilities continue to serve the people who rely on them.

“This centre represents an opportunity to restore critical cancer infrastructure in Newport, ensuring we deliver sustainable, high-quality care for the community that depends on it.”

The centre in Newport has been designed to deliver high-quality, patient-centred cancer care, supported by the latest advanced technology and AI-enabled workflows that help clinicians plan and deliver more precise radiotherapy treatment. With this infrastructure and technology, Icon says it will support personalised care for patients, including faster treatment planning, improved accuracy and, where clinically appropriate, fewer treatment sessions.

‘Radiotherapy’

Dr Penny Kechagioglou, Chief Medical Officer, Icon UK, said:“Every patient is different, so our emphasis is on delivering care that is carefully coordinated, clinically led and centred on the individual.

“Radiotherapy is a vital part of cancer treatment but underutilised in the UK. Bringing these assets back online creates more access for cancer patients needing life-saving therapy.

“Every patient with cancer should have access to the right treatment at the right time and as close to home as possible. Bringing this centre back into use will help make that a reality for more people.”

Reopening the three Rutherford Health facilities builds on Icon’s acquisition of Cancer Centre London, now operating as Icon Cancer Centre London.The group is also progressing new centres in Brighton, Derbyshire and Warwickshire, alongside a proposed centre in Leeds as part of a wider health initiative at AMT Headingley Stadium.

‘Wealthy elite’

But a spokesperson for the campaign group Colocate Velindre, which argued for a new NHS cancer centre in south east Wales to be built adjacent to a district general hospital and whose supporters include many NHS clinicians, said: “The proposed centre looks like it will serve only a wealthy elite since cancer treatments are particularly expensive, and oversight of an overarching cancer pathway additionally so. This elite is not a large consumer group in Wales.

“If, as appears so far, innovative contracts with the Welsh Government are lacking, the new facility seems only minimally able to help the greater majority of cancer patients in Wales.

“The Icon Group’s first cancer centre in the UK is co-located with an NHS general hospital doing surgery (Nuffield Health Parkside Hospital). But Wales, it appears, can only expect a standalone centre lacking these surgical services and acute back-up on site. The Nuffield Advice (2020), however, considered such provision absolutely necessary due to ever more toxic cancer treatments ahead. Only the unreadiness of University Hospital of Wales stood in the way of the colocation needed for this in 2020.

“The Icon Group in 2026, with a clean sheet, needs then to explain its deliberate choice of a site away from a general hospital. That also prompts the question of an overarching single cancer patient pathway and what it looks like for a private cancer centre which is not colocated. That facility lacks by definition a hospital-led single cancer journey maximising the possibility of seamless, muti-disciplinary teamwork with oversight at every stage.

“A patient’s peace of mind is seen as served by this coherence given to the whole cancer journey. In London the Icon Group, because co-located, has presumably belonged to such a hospital team. That should surely also be the case in Wales. A further key question follows. How far will the new centre participate in stages of the whole cancer journey beyond its own discrete treatment, for instance in follow-up etc?

“Assurance is also needed about emergency treatments. What mitigation and resuscitation procedures are in mind for when some things (inevitably) go wrong? Who handles any ‘corrective’ measures if neither the Icon Group itself nor the NHS is particularly experienced at it? In addition, what proportion of the facility’s specialist clinicians are also NHS employed and how are conflicts of interest avoided here?

“There seem to be many angles remaining opaque regarding this choice of a standalone facility, despite a media launch. If this perception is false, and consultation is indeed well underway, fair enough. But many stakeholders will still want to learn much more about this process or, better, be participating in it.”

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