Building work has begun on a new £30.5 million cancer diagnostic and treatment centre in Guildford. Developed in partnership with GenesisCare and Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust on the site of Royal Surrey County Hospital, this is the most recent private healthcare development from Prime PLC.
Made possible by investment from Assura, this pioneering development will provide patients with access to the latest treatment options for cancer, including highly targeted radiotherapy using a Magnetic Resonance Image Linear Accelerator (MR Linac).
This exciting technology is not widely available in the UK but has been shown to improve outcomes for tumours that are moving or difficult to reach[1]. GenesisCare has used this advanced technology to successfully treat renal, pancreatic, and lung tumours at its Oxford centre, where surgery is not possible due to the complexity of the cancer.
Compared to conventional radiotherapy, treatment can be administered with greater sparing of normal tissues, over a shorter of period of time, resulting in fewer sessions and less disruption for patients. Royal Surrey County Hospital will be one of a handful of Trusts to be able to offer access to this technology to its patients.
Alongside this build, at the same site, Prime have also secured planning to develop a 600 space multistorey staff car park serving Royal Surrey County Hospital.
Both the cancer centre and car park are being built by VINCI Building and are expected to achieve a BREEAM rating of Very Good, with Excellent for the Energy component, and an EPC of A. It will include PV panels, LED lighting throughout and EV charging points. The site will also benefit from creation of a new sensory garden for patient and staff wellbeing.
Assura Development Director for Strategic Projects, Jon Webb, said: “As we move beyond the pandemic, the need for more space and capacity for care right across the health system has been clear and this new, state-of-the-art facility is part of that, helping to address treatment backlogs. It’s a special day to see the ground being broken and we look forward to the first patients benefiting from this state-of-the-art site, where such advanced technology will be in use for patients every day.”
Rob Ferris, Business Development Director for Prime said “We are seeing increasing demand for our specialist expertise in securing land, planning and funding for the development of private cancer care facilities, designed to the highest standards for functionality and sustainability. We have collaborated with GenesisCare and Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust to deliver a solution that will deliver outstanding benefits to the staff and patients of both organisations and improve health outcomes for the region.”
Jason Griffiths, Regional Director at VINCI said “Vinci Building are proud to be delivering this amazing, state of the art cancer centre in Guildford. It will change people’s lives in Surrey and we are delighted to be part of the team”.
Practical completion on the GenesisCare centre is expected in the autumn of 2023.
[1] 1 Otazo, R., Lambin, P., Pignol, J., Ladd, M., Schlemmer, H., Baumann, M. and Hricak, H., 2021. MRI-guided Radiation Therapy: An Emerging Paradigm in Adaptive Radiation Oncology. Radiology, 298(2), pp.248-260. (Otazo et al., 2021)
