The Northern Centre for Cancer Care marks its one year anniversary

The state-of-the-art centre, based at the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle, was officially opened by the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care – Sajid Javid – benefitting thousands of patients.

Its development brought all non-surgical cancer services under the same roof for the first time, now the majority of adult patients can be treated in the centre, receiving their care closer to home.

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With only patients with rare cancers, those requiring very specialist radiotherapy and children and young people with cancer needing to be referred to the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle.

Ashraf Azzabi, consultant medical oncologist at Newcastle Hospitals, said: “This last year has passed so quickly, but we’re delighted we’ve been able to offer these services to people in Cumbria. Our team here work extremely hard to support our patients and we continue to receive outstanding feedback from people receiving treatment in the centre.

"We’re committed to improving cancer services for patients across north Cumbria and we have plans to continue this with an upgrade to the chemotherapy suite in Whitehaven."

Last year, the team at the centre have delivered almost 9,000 radiotherapy treatments and over 10,000 chemotherapy treatments - the NCCC is partnership between Newcastle Hospitals and North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust (NCIC). 

47-year-old Shaun McKeown from Longtown in Cumbria was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer in March 2022 and is currently receiving treatment at the centre.

After speaking to his GP Shaun was referred for a colonoscopy where he was diagnosed with bowel cancer. Shaun had surgery to remove the tumour and within a few weeks was back to walking five to ten kilometres a day.

Shaun now travels to the centre for his chemotherapy once every three weeks and is full of praise for the staff caring for him: “The staff have all been spot on, when I had my first appointment there they showed me round and explained exactly what would happen, what kind of side effects I might have – which was really brilliant as it meant I felt more prepared for some of the more unusual side effects I have.

"I count myself as one of the lucky ones, I only need to go there once a week, there are other people who need to go every day so it’s great to have a centre like this so close to home – travelling for hours for treatment would make things so much more challenging," he said. 

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