New radiotherapy unit to open
With the new radiotherapy unit at Altnagelvin Hospital to open soon, agendaNi took the opportunity to visit the site and speak to some of the unit’s new staff.
The new radiotherapy unit at Altnagelvin Hospital is due to open later this year. The new service will be located beside and connected to the existing Sperrin Suite at Altnagelvin Hospital. The building will be approximately 10,000 sqm and will cost around £50 million to complete.
At present, the overall concrete superstructure is now fully evident on site with the steelwork to the upper levels, the steelwork forming the entrance area and connections to the Sperrin suite and tower are progressing well. The windows and curtain walling are being placed around the building, as are the internal stud work partitions. The car park has also been completed.
The radiotherapy unit at Altnagelvin will cater for over 500,000 people living on both sides of the border. All Western Health and Social Care Trust patients and patients from the northern sector of the Northern Health and Social Care Trust area (Coleraine, Moyle and Ballymoney) areas will access radiotherapy services at Altnagelvin. Patients from the Republic of Ireland will also use the site’s facilities as will patients from north to mid-Donegal (the catchment area of Letterkenny General Hospital).
In total this equates to 417,000 within Northern Ireland and 110,000 people in the Republic of Ireland. However, approximately 10 per cent of the population will continue to access more specialist treatment at the Northern Ireland Cancer Centre at Belfast City Hospital and National Treatment Centres in the south.
Services
It is the intention to provide a patient-centered, holistic service for cancer patients at Altnagelvin. Radiotherapy treatment, both single and combination radio/chemotherapy for curative and palliative purposes, for all but the most complex tumors will be delivered at the new facility.
Speaking about the types of treatment on offer, Altnagelvin’s Consultant Oncologist, Dr David Stewart claimed it was the hospital’s mission to provide high quality cancer care to the north west of Ireland and explained that it would not have been possible without the building that provides both the best work environment for his staff and the best environment for patients.
“The building has been designed to have a warm and welcoming ambience,” said Dr Stewart. “Everywhere it maximises the connection to nature. The connection between the internal building and the outside garden will be of significant benefit to the patients. A lot of evidence suggests that the environment can play a big part in the quality levels of treatment the patient receives.
“Cancer is a journey and for patients from the north west it has been a long journey, travel wise, for many many years. This will transform the access of our patients to state of the art radiotherapy locally in their own area. At present they have an hour and half journey each way, if they live in Malin Head they may have to face a four or five hour journey to Galway or Dublin but not anymore.”
Equipment
Not only will it be a modern building, the new radiotherapy unit will be a state-of-the-art facility housing three linear accelerators and four treatment suites, a CT simulator for radiotherapy treatment planning, a CT scanner and MRI scanner for radiology diagnostic services and 13 inpatient beds for single and combination radiotherapy patients combined with the existing 14 oncology/hematology inpatient beds.
The unit will have the capacity to provide approximately 23,000 treatment fractions of external beam radiation annually. In terms of new patients per year, this equates to approximately 1,100 Northern Ireland patients and 400 patients from the Republic of Ireland.
Discussing the range of equipment on offer, Lead Pre-Treatment Radiographer Deborah Kerr explained that the centre’s cutting edge equipment will allow it to offer patients world class treatment.
“This isn’t something we have had in the north west and we can’t oversell it, that is the single biggest advantage. We have 21 radiographers in post with four more due to come along in the next few months. For me it is exciting to be able to train staff and develop a service based around that new equipment and we are working on our clinical protocols and techniques as we speak, it will be exciting to bring it all to life in a few short months.”
The equipment and the opportunities are just a few of the things that the lead treatment radiographer, Elaine Reilly was keen to highlight. “It is exciting to be able to bring on board evidence based new techniques that our equipment is capable of doing. It is something we will be looking into very closely.
“I came to Northern Ireland in February 2015 with my husband specifically to take up a job in this new unit because it is such an exciting opportunity to actually set up a radiotherapy service from scratch and make decisions about what we think is the best way forward for cancer patients in this region.”
Staffing
The total staffing numbers for the service is approximately 215 full time posts. During 2015, staff were recruited to support the essential planning for the new service, three consultants and one speciality doctor joined the Trust. Currently there are 21 radiographers in post and more will be joining before April 2016. The recruitment of nurses commenced in early autumn 2015 and will continue until the opening of the unit.
It is anticipated that the majority of the team will arrive this spring in anticipation of the unit’s opening.
Reflecting on what he hopes the unit will offer the local population, the Director of Strategic Capital Development, Alan Moore, claimed that on top of all the other benefits the additional capacity will ensure that patient waiting time targets are met.
“The new radiotherapy unit, creates additional capacity for Northern Ireland and indeed for the Irish Republic and so therefore we hope as the number of patients receiving cancer treatment here grows, demand can be met,” he said.
“The new radiotherapy facility will work in conjunction with our existing chemotherapy facilities in our Sperrin suite. It allows those patients who are undertaking both chemotherapy and radiotherapy to receive their treatment, in the majority of cases, in a single location. The centre will provide both inpatient and outpatient service and will do it locally.”
