£26m Christie at Macclesfield cancer centre to treat its first patient

The Christie at Macclesfield treated its first patient on 13th December, marking a new chapter in cancer care for East Cheshire and the surrounding area.

Sue Thompson, 58, from Holmes Chapel, was the first patient to receive chemotherapy in the new £26m cancer centre on 13th December.

Having discovered a breast lump in early August, Sue was diagnosed with breast cancer in early September 2021 and started having treatment on 15 September. She is now around two thirds of the way through her chemotherapy and will then have surgery followed by radiotherapy.

Funded through £23m from The Christie charity, The Christie at Macclesfield will transform cancer care not just in East Cheshire but in the rest of the county, North Staffordshire and the High Peak area of Derbyshire.

The new centre will provide a range of holistic services including radiotherapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, hormone therapies, haematology treatments, outpatient care, nurse led clinics, counselling services, an information centre, palliative care and a wider range of clinical trials. 

It will be delivering 12,500 radiotherapy treatments every year and 6,800 chemotherapy, immunotherapy and hormonal treatments.

This ambitious project includes specialist examination rooms, a new chemotherapy suite, a CT scanner where treatments are planned, counselling and complementary therapy rooms, a cancer information centre, a charity centre and a refreshment area.

Work on the two storey building commenced in the summer of 2020, following clearance work commencing at the end of 2020. The project has been completed on time on budget.

Roger Spencer, Chief Executive at The Christie said: “We are delighted to be opening The Christie at Macclesfield today and will be providing a very warm Christie welcome to our first patients.

“The centre marks a new era in cancer care and treatment for people from East Cheshire and the surrounding areas. Many patients from Macclesfield and beyond currently travel to our Withington site but radiotherapy patients particularly will benefit from much shorter journeys in the future. Patients having radiotherapy can spend hours each day travelling to and from Withington for up to six weeks, at a time when they and their families are already very distressed.”

The Christie at Macclesfield has been designed in a way that will cater for the needs of patients with frailty.

The Christie charity is supporting the £26 million new cancer centre in Macclesfield where Christie patients receive outstanding cancer care, closer to home. Following the completion of the new cancer centre, there is still more to be done to support cancer patients as they go through their treatment. The Christie charity provides enhanced services over and above what the NHS funds. At Macclesfield, this will include complementary therapy, refreshments for patients, and other supportive services. Gifts from the public make a huge difference to the care and treatment that we can provide. To support patients at The Christie at Macclesfield visit:

www.christies.org/macclesfield

...or call the team on 0161 446 3988.

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust was the first specialist trust to be rated as ‘Outstanding’ twice (in 2016 and 2018) by the health regulator the Care Quality Commission (CQC). It referred to The Christie as ‘a leader in cancer care’ and ‘a pioneer in developing innovative solutions to cancer care.’ The CQC praised the Trust’s staff which it said ‘go the extra mile to meet the needs of patients and their families’ and that they were ‘exceptionally kind and caring.’ In 2017, the CQC rated The Christie as the best specialist trust in the country, and one of the top three trusts overall in England. 

About The Christie

• The Christie opened in 1901 and is now one of Europe’s leading cancer centres and the largest single-site centre in Europe 
• We are the largest radiotherapy provider in the NHS. We are also the largest provider in Europe, with one in 20 radiotherapy treatments delivered at The Christie. We are one of only two cancer centres worldwide to offer both MR-linac and high energy proton beam therapy (the other is MD Anderson in Texas, US).
• The Christie delivers chemotherapy treatment through the largest chemotherapy unit in the UK, as well as via 12 other sites, a mobile chemotherapy unit and in patients’ homes.
• The Christie is a specialist tertiary surgical centre concentrating on rare cancers, specialist procedures and multidisciplinary cancer surgery. It is one of the largest HIPEC centres in western Europe and one of only two in the UK to provide this treatment for appendiceal and colorectal tumours. It also has one of the largest robotic centres in the UK and the largest complex pelvic cancer team in the UK.
• The Christie is one of Europe's experimental cancer medicine centres and an international leader in research and development with around 650 clinical studies ongoing at any one time. The NIHR Manchester Clinical Research Facility at The Christie provides a high quality, dedicated clinical research environment for our patients to participate in trials.

·        The Christie charity is currently fundraising for some vital new projects including a new cancer centre in Macclesfield providing care closer to home, refurbishment of our CT scanning department with an improved environment and the latest 4D CT technology, and with our partners at The University of Manchester and Cancer Research UK, plans to build a new world class transformational research facility to replace the Paterson building. Find out more at:

www.christies.org/the-christie-charity/why-we-need-your-help/what-we-are-fundraising-for

• The Christie has one of the largest hospital charities in the UK with 82p in every pound raised going directly to the patients. We work hard to make sure that the money donated to us is spent where the hospital needs it most and we produce a separate Impact Report which gives more detail about how the charitable income is spent and the difference it has made to our patients and their families.

·        We have achieved a phenomenal amount thanks to the backing of our donors. In the past five years, our charity has helped to fund a purpose built teenage and young adult unit integrated with a haematology and transplant inpatient ward, a new Integrated Procedures Unit, a proton beam therapy research room, a state of the art MR-linac machine, a new gamma camera and new outreach services. Read more at:

www.christies.org/the-christie-charity/why-we-need-your-help/how-youve-helped/

• In 2019/20, The Christie charity was supported by 6,777 taking part in sporting event participants. 184 people left us a gift in their will and we received 1.494 in memoriam donations. We had 16,849 donations from corporate organisations, 43 gifts from charitable trusts and foundations, and we received 138,000 individual donations.
• Supporters can find out how to donate and make a payment at www.christies.org/the-christie-charity/donate