First patient benefits from NHS’s high energy proton beam centre at the Christie

The first patient to benefit from the NHS’s first high energy Proton Beam Therapy (PBT) Centre has been treated at the Christie Hospital in Manchester.

The PBT Centre in the North West was recently finished by Interserve, the international support services and construction group, and uses an advanced form of radiotherapy for the treatment of complex and hard-to-treat cancers in children and adults.

PBT uses a high-energy beam of protons rather than high-energy X-rays to deliver a dose of radiotherapy. It directs the radiation treatment to precisely where it is needed with minimal damage to surrounding tissue.

The Christie, which worked in partnership with Interserve, was selected by the Department of Health as one of two providers of the service, together with University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The state of the art 15,000 m2 five-storey building has: four treatment rooms; a patient reception; consultation rooms and public space. The building is designed to be future proof with additional space for the Trust to grow into.

The life-changing facility, which will treat around 750 people a year, will also ensure that families will no longer have to endure expensive and stressful travel abroad for treatment.

As this unique project was the first being built in the UK, Interserve had no blueprint to follow so they travelled extensively around the globe to bring the benefit of international expertise and learning to the UK, overcoming many challenges to deliver this world class facility and become experts in delivering this type of facility.

To meet the building’s demanding energy needs, a new sub-station has been built, which provides an equivalent amount of power to that needed to run the nearby Trafford Industrial Park.

The building is the first PBT Centre to target BREEAM excellent. Reclaiming heat from the Proton Beam equipment will make a significant contribution to the BREEAM scoring.

Phil Shaw, divisional director at Interserve Construction in the North West, said: “We are proud to have delivered this life-changing facility which built on our long-term relationship with The Christie with whom we have been construction partners for more than 10 years.

“With the admission of the first patient to the PBT, the Christie passes another significant milestone in the delivery of a life-saving therapy to residents in the North West and beyond and marks another substantial milestone in our long-term relationship with The Christie.”

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