Cancer Centre marks its 10th anniversary

The Cancer Centre at Belfast City Hospital is this year celebrating a decade of delivering excellent care for local patients with the 10th anniversary of the hospital’s opening.

The Cancer Centre first opened its doors to patients on 17th March 2006 following a £60 million investment which saw cancer services relocate from Belvoir Park Hospital to its new home on the former Jubilee Maternity Hospital site at Belfast City Hospital.  The new Cancer Centre marked a new chapter for cancer services in Northern Ireland with its state of the art facilities.  Today, with the support of Friends of the Cancer Centre, the hospital is still Northern Ireland’s centre of excellence for cancer treatment, offering patients chemotherapy, radiotherapy and brachytherapy treatments.  In the last decade thousands of people – patients and families – from across Northern Ireland have made their way through the Cancer Centre for treatment and today, nearly 300 people come to the centre for radiotherapy treatment each day with hundreds more attending for chemotherapy each week.

Throughout the last 10 years the work of the Belfast Trust in the Cancer Centre has been supported by Friends of the Cancer Centre and over the last 10 years the charity has put an incredible £5.5 million into the hospital to support patient care.

Colleen Shaw, Chief Executive of Friends of the Cancer Centre, said:

“The Cancer Centre is an excellent facility and while we always hope that people won’t have to make use of its services, we want to reassure them that if they do have to come to the hospital for treatment, we’re here to support them every step of the way.

“Thanks to the support of people from across Northern Ireland, the charity has been going from strength to strength and we’re now putting over £1 million back into the Cancer Centre every year by funding vital doctors, nurses, equipment, research and much, much more.  The result is that we have been able to enhance the already excellent care available and make a patient’s time in the hospital as comfortable as possible.  Looking to the future, we are committed to putting at least £1.5 million into the Cancer Centre every year to ensure that the Cancer Centre continues to be a shining of example of excellent cancer care locally and around the world.”

Over the last decade the Cancer Centre has played an increasingly vital role in cancer research though world class clinical trials developed in partnership with the Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology (CCRCB) at Queen’s University.

Professor Joe O’Sullivan, Clinical Director of the Cancer Centre, said:

“The Cancer Centre is one of the leading cancer units in the UK and a decade after it opened, the hospital is now a centre of excellence offering the very best treatment and care to people across Northern Ireland.

“Cancer care is constantly changing and in the last ten years fantastic progress has been made in how we care for patients.  The good news is that the Cancer Centre, with the support of Friends of the Cancer Centre and in partnership with the Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology at Queen’s University, is playing a really important part in developing new ways to treat patients.  Clinical trials developed and carried out in the Cancer Centre, such as the new ADRRAD trial for advanced prostate cancer, are of global significance and could change how we look at and treat cancer in the future.  To be part of this, as a clinician, is very exciting and just one of the many reasons why I’m extremely proud to work at the Cancer Centre.”