DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION
Bringing proton beam therapy to the UK patients
In September’s HEJ, the architectural practice that designed the Rutherford Cancer Centre North East in Northumberland, JDDK Architects, discussed some of the key thinking behind the facility’s creation. Here, John McIntosh, general manager of Rutherford Health’s development arm, Rutherford Estates, explains how Rutherford Health plc has built and begun operating three such advanced cancer centres across the UK, and is on course to deliver more.
Rutherford Health Plc was established in 2015 to advance cancer care in the UK through the application of precision radiotherapy and personalised care. The company was the first to introduce high- energy proton beam therapy to the UK, in Spring 2018 – at its centre in Wales, the Rutherford Cancer Centre South Wales. In just four years, it has created three state- of-the-art cancer centres, and is on course to deliver more through its development arm, Rutherford Estates. Despite the highly technical and exacting requirements, Rutherford Estates has proved that it is able to produce a brand new centre from concept to handover in under two years, and is now a world-leader in developing a set of networked proton beam therapy treatment centres. In this article I will be aiming to give an insight into how the company has got there so quickly, and some of the issues we have both confronted, and overcome, along the way. Proton beam therapy is a type of radiotherapy that delivers heavily charged protons in a precise manner, reducing residual damage to peripheral healthy tissue and organs. While protons deliver the same damage to cancer cells as radiotherapy; they can be controlled to stop at a defined point in the body. Due to its precision and accuracy, research highlights that proton therapy is particularly effective in treating cancers in children, and hard-to-reach cancers in the brain or near the spinal cord. More than 150,000 cancer patients in the UK every year are treated with radiation therapy, of which 90,000 require radical radiotherapy. Internationally, it is widely accepted that at least 10% of these patients could be better treated with proton therapy. Each Rutherford Cancer Centre is equipped to treat up to 500 patients with proton beam therapy per year. In addition to proton beam therapy, each centre also offers conventional cancer treatments, such as imaging, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and radiotherapy, as well as a full suite of diagnostic services.
Rutherford’s Proteus One proton beam therapy treatment room at Reading.
Company’s own integral development arm
The original concept was to create a network of the most advanced cancer centres in the UK, both geographically and technologically. From the outset, the fledgling company’s CEO, Mike Moran MBE, saw the value in the company having its own integral development arm. His plan was to create an initial three centres, to learn from doing so, and then to go on to create more. The company, initially named Proton Partners International, and latterly Rutherford Health Plc, formed a subsidiary – Rutherford Estates Ltd (abbreviated to REL), to do this.
The choice of the initial site, and subsequently REL’s home base, was heavily influenced by the enthusiasm of the Welsh Government. It saw the potential in encouraging a hi-tech healthcare initiative to set up in South Wales, helped identify a location in Newport, and invested £10 m in the company. The Welsh Government’s foresight was soon rewarded not only by
the doubling in value of its investment, but also by Wales becoming the place where the first ever patient in the UK received high-energy proton treatment for cancer.
The Newport site involved the complete refurbishment and refitting of a 10-year- old existing building, previously used as a private hospital, with an adjacent grassed- over expansion plot. That plot was crucial, being just big enough for the 100 m long, 3 m deep, three-storey high-energy proton beam therapy building. We learnt a great deal on that first project. As an existing hospital that had been used for surgical procedures under general anaesthetics, the initial advice received was that the existing systems and specialist plant would be more than capable of supporting the less-demanding requirements of the diagnostic services and chemotherapy we planned to use the existing building for. A few years of inactivity, coupled with a stringent interpretation of the most up-to-date HBNs and HTMs, soon, however, put paid to that notion.
October 2019 Health Estate Journal 37
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