Work starts on Hereford County Hospital radiotherapy unit

Work has started on a new £7.7m radiotherapy centre at Hereford County Hospital.

The new unit, funded and run by Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (GHNHSFT), is expected to open by summer 2013.

Patients from Herefordshire currently face a journey to Cheltenham, some 40 miles (64km) from Hereford.

The new centre is being built alongside the new Macmillan Renton Unit, which provides chemotherapy treatment.

Mark Curtis, who chairs the Wye Valley NHS Trust, which operates the Hereford hospital, said the unit would make a big difference to people in remote parts of Herefordshire.

"It you've been on the receiving end of any of these therapies it can knock you for six, and having a long journey on top of that it's incomprehensible unless you've been through it," he said.

The centre will be owned by GHNHSFT.