Worcester radiotherapy centre plans approved

Plans have been approved to build a £20m radiotherapy centre in Worcestershire to treat cancer patients in their own county.

The centre will be built on the site of Worcester Royal Hospital in the town's Charles Hastings Way.

Currently Worcestershire patients have to travel to Birmingham or Gloucestershire for radiotherapy.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust approved the plans at a board meeting on Thursday.

Trust chairman Harry Turner said: "We've calculated our Worcestershire patients are travelling in excess of a million miles per year to get that service and we felt we should bring it into the county and have it made locally available."

Campaigners handed in a petition to the trust with several thousand signatures asking for the centre to be built at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch instead.

Mr Turner said he took the petition very seriously and thanked people for demonstrating their passion to health care in Worcestershire, but said the Worcester location was the best site for the new centre.