Welsh Government invests in new radiotherapy machines for North Wales Cancer Treatment Centre
The Welsh Government is investing £9.49m to upgrade radiotherapy treatment at the North Wales Cancer Treatment Centre.
Two new linear accelerators will replace ageing equipment at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd to deliver radiotherapy treatment more accurately and efficiently.
The new machines will be more reliable than the older machines, which can break down and delay patient treatment. They also work faster, allowing more people to receive treatment each week.
Commitment
Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Jeremy Miles said: “This new, state-of-the-art equipment will provide more precise and faster treatment for people with cancer, improving access to radiotherapy services and cutting waiting times.
“It is another example of the Welsh Government’s commitment to improving outcomes for people and follows similar investments in new equipment in Wales’ other cancer centres.”
Head of Radiotherapy Physics at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, Jaap Vaarkamp added: “This new equipment will help us to deliver innovative, patient-centred care through simplified treatments, reduced delivery times and highly improved imaging. It will help ensure we deliver targeted treatment, when it is needed.”
The North Wales Cancer Treatment Centre is one of three specialist cancer centres in Wales that deliver external beam radiotherapy services. The other two two are Velindre in Cardiff and the South West Wales Cancer Centre in Cardiff.
Each cancer centre has a number of linear accelerators to deliver external beam radiotherapy, which is distinct from machines or techniques that deliver radiotherapy internally within the body.
The new Linacs for North Wales will be installed and operational in 2026.
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Most love to bash the NHS for how much it costs to the taxpayer. They also like to bash me for defending it. But then I suppose equipment like this somehow gets parachuted in for free. And then they assume all this equipment somehow runs itself.
I agree. My partner was diagnosed with throat cancer during the coronavirus pandemic, and was treated at this cancer centre at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in Bodelwyddan.
Despite all the stresses on health services at that time, the treatment which she received there was careful, assiduous and, ultimately, successful. The after-care and follow-up has been no less thorough, and she’s now cancer-free.
Like you, I value what we have, and all the more so after an experience as recent and as traumatic as the one which I’ve described.
For equipment like this, I imagine the yearly maintenance and servicing is around 8-10% of the purchase costs as well. If you want to deliver high quality service, it does cost. I’m very glad to hear your partner survived their treatment
Thank you. As you say, she did ‘survive’, though with permanent damage to her hearing and some enduring difficulties around swallowing – both direct consequences of the treatment rather than of the cancer itself.
But on the other hand, without that treatment the cancer would beyond doubt have progressed to its ultimate conclusion.
South West Wales Cancer Centre in Cardiff?
I think not – try Swansea.