Numbers dictate that capital's Cancer Centre must be NHS priority

Paused Scottish Government funding storing up trouble for Lothian as incidence of disease to soar

Bowel cancer cells: Pic Cancer Research UK

Blink, and you’d have missed it. But the impact of the Scottish Government’s two-year pause on NHS capital projects will have a significant impact on arguably our greatest health challenge.

It may be about to get worse, as further delays are now certain to plans to build and equip a state-of-the-art Edinburgh Cancer Centre at the Western General Hospital to replace the existing centre, while the numbers being affected by cancer will continue to grow.      

The decision announced in mid-January wasn’t unreported by any means. The potential delay for the ECC was mentioned, as was the proposed National Treatment Centre at St John’s in Livingston but most of the political attention and media coverage focused on the further delay to the long-promised but still-to-materialise replacement for the Princes Alexandra Eye Pavilion.

Now at £120 million plus, the cost of the project has been rising throughout the decade since the existing Eye Pavilion was declared no longer fit for purpose.  Those seeking to prioritise the projects as they, hopefully, come back onstream will have a Sophie’s Choice that will inevitably cause upset.

Plans have been worked up over recent years for a new ECC at the Western General Hospital to serve the 1.5 million patients in the South-East Scotland Cancer Network - NHS Lothian, NHS Borders, NHS Dumfries and Galloway and NHS Fife. The lead time to build a new centre was already in the region of a decade in any event, so any pause pushes the much-needed new centre still further down the track.

The new cancer centre will come with a £1 billion plus price tag and will also put increased strain on revenue budgets. With inflation in the construction industry a major factor in recent months, the capital figure particularly is at risk of increasing.

The new ECC is essential not simply to provide much needed improved space and facilities, but also to ensure Edinburgh maintains its reputation as a centre of excellence for cancer research and clinical trials. Patients in the area benefit from the strong relationships between the NHS, the University of Edinburgh and Cancer Research UK in funding and running clinical trials.

The competition for research and the treatment opportunities the research staff and innovations bring ensures that patients can have access to a greater amount of cutting-edge expertise.  

Already the dilapidated and ramshackle nature of much of the existing cancer centre is in danger of impacting on this important element, and in an earlier report NHS Lothian acknowledged this: “Discovery and technological development in the detection and treatment of cancer is fast-moving, and the ECC, alongside it’s partners, has an international reputation in clinical research. Clinical trials provide access to potentially lifesaving or life-extending cancer treatments that are not yet available in standard care, and this can provide hope when standard treatment options have been exhausted.