This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Work starts on flagship cancer centre
07/07/2004
A new era for cancer services in the west of Scotland began today as work started on a new state of the art cancer centre.
The West of Scotland Cancer Centre will be the single biggest hospital building project funded directly by the NHS in Scotland.
The £87 million Centre will be based next to Gartnavel General Hospital and will bring a range of specialist cancer services under one roof, providing a total of 173 inpatient beds and 11 linear accelerators.
Cutting the first turf at the site today, Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm said:
"The Beatson has come a long way since staff shortages and resignations brought the centre to crisis point nearly three years ago.
"Thanks to additional annual funding from the Executive's national cancer strategy, as well as excellent leadership under the management of Alan Rodger, the Beatson now has more than 100 additional staff. These include five additional consultants, 16 radiography staff and 53 extra nurses.
"From 2007 staff will work from a state of the art building bringing services and specialist expertise together from a variety of sites. The new Centre will serve nearly 2.8 million people in the West of Scotland and beyond, 60 per cent of the Scottish population.
"The new five floor building will include 173 inpatient beds and 45 day treatment beds, patient and family information services, a pharmacy, state of the art scanning equipment, clinical trial and research space and an education suite with facilities for teaching and telemedicine.
"It will mean improved patient services, with less travelling between sites, for example for radiotherapy arrangement and treatment. For staff, it will encourage the further development of multidisciplinary teams, including GPs, nurses and pharmacists and be a major boost to the recruitment and retention of staff.
"And working in partnership with the voluntary sector means that a dedicated unit for teenagers, funded by the Teenage Cancer Trust, will be built into the new centre, complete with inpatient beds and a relaxation zone designed specifically for young people.
"Modern health care does not come cheap. The new centre at Gartnavel will be the single biggest publicly funded hospital facility in the NHS in Scotland. However the advances that have already been made at the Beatson, combined with modern facilities and equipment, mean that the Beatson will be better equipped than ever before to tackle the burden of cancer in the West of Scotland."
Professor Alan Rodger, Medical Director, Beatson Oncology Centre, said:
"Over the next couple of years we will create the best equipped cancer centre in the country with all the facilities to support both the patients and the professionals looking after them.
"The project team at the Beatson have been working hard for a long time to drive this eagerly awaited project forward and I am delighted that we are at the stage of cutting the first turf for the final phase of work to begin.
"The state of the art regional cancer centre will help provide world class cancer services for the people of the West of Scotland and it is no less than they deserve."
Each year staff at the Beatson are involved in the care of more than 8000 new patients. Over 16000 courses of chemotherapy are administered and more than 6000 courses of radiotherapy are administered annually.
Phase II will conclude the total #100 million package of investment in cancer services for the West of Scotland, following the completion of the Phase I development - the Tom Wheldon Building, - already in operation and housing five linear accelerators.