Fighting Cancer Across Three Counties

The Cobalt Appeal Fund is drawing on more than 40 years of experience to bring exciting new developments in the fight against cancer to the area.

Chairman Dick Greenslade, said: “We have taken dramatic steps forward - both in the funding of NHS projects and in the development of our own diagnostic services with the Cheltenham Imaging Centre.”

“Our team is building on the hard work of Dr Fred Hanna, who founded the charity, and Howard Crooks, the Clinical and Administrative Director, to continue improving the detection and treatment of cancer.”

Over recent years, more than £750,000 has been pledged to provide hospital equipment and to help develop imaginative research projects. Equipment provided includes four ultra sound breast scanners, two in the Breast Clinic at Cheltenham General Hospital, one at Gloucester Royal Hospital and one in the Breast Screening Service housed in accommodation provided by Cobalt in Cheltenham.

Pictured with one of the ultrasound breast scanners, from left, are Dr Ian Lyburn, Appeal Fund Chairman Dick Greenslade, Mr James Bristol, Senior Breast Nurse Sue Scarrot, Mr Charlie Chan, Cobalt’s Clinical Director Howard Crooks.

The charity also provides a successful and important cancer prevention and education service, which it plans to expand over the next few years.

A Clinical Liaison Group has been set up to enable the NHS Three Counties Cancer Network and the Cobalt Appeal Fund to work together to improve cancer treatment in the three counties, primarily at Cheltenham’s Oncology Centre. The liaison group has helped Cobalt identify where its money is most needed to enhance cancer services locally.

Network Clinical Director Roger Owen says he "acknowledges and welcomes the active cooperation between the Cobalt Appeal Fund and the Three Counties Network. We are seeking common goals."

New Diagnostic Centre Houses PET-CT scanner

Cobalt’s latest major achievement– a £7million state-of-the-art diagnostic centre – received its first patients in May 2006.

The Centre, a two-storey extension of Linton House in Thirlestaine Road, Cheltenham, houses Gloucestershire’s first PET-CT scanner.

The scanner enables doctors to diagnose cancer at its earliest stages and monitor patients’ response to drug treatments.

It is currently one of only nine such scanners in operation in the country and four of these are inside London teaching hospitals.

Cobalt Chairman Dick Greenslade said: “We hope to scan around 2,000 patients a year and intend to provide PET-CT services to local hospitals at a price well below that of the likely NHS tariff, thus providing both high quality scans at a convenient location to local patients and also benefiting the health services across the three counties financially.”

Breast cancer specialist at Cheltenham General Hospital Charlie Chan says "There are only a handful of these scanners across the country so we're privileged to have one. It’s important equipment and a positive move by the charity.”

The new centre will also allow the Cobalt Appeal Fund to extend its highly successful MRI scanning service by buying two new machines, with improved levels of accuracy and comfort.

Work begins (right) to unload the 3.0 tesla magnet before it is lowered by crane in the presence of Howard Crooks, Dr Fred Hannah, president of the Cobalt Appeal Fund, and Dick Greenslade

Cobalt has provided free MRI scans for patients treated at the Cheltenham Oncology centre who live within the beneficial area, for the past 14 years - saving the NHS around £180,000 a year at today’s prices.

Patients referred to Linton House by GPs and Primary Care Trusts for MRI scans have the use of the Cobalt-funded scanners at or below cost.

The charity also sells its MRI services to the private sector and the income so raised has been used to provide the new MRI scanners and part fund the building costs.

New Trustees Strengthen Cobalt Board

Steps have been taken to strengthen the Fund’s board of trustees with the appointments of Dr Alison Grove and Vivien Gould.

Dr Grove, a specialist in caring for people in the final stages of illness, has brought more than 30 years of medical experience to the charity.

She works part-time as a specialist in palliative care at St Giles Hospital, near Lichfield, and is a visiting associate specialist at Queen’s Hospital, Burton on Trent, and at Sandwell Hospital, West Midlands.

The wife of the Bishop of Gloucester, she trained at Charing Cross Hospital and, for three months after qualifying, worked with Mother Theresa in Madras.

Successful businesswoman Vivien Gould who lives in Avening, near Tetbury, brings 30 years of experience to the Cheltenham-based charity from her varied career in the financial services sector.

She was a founder director of River & Mercantile Investment Management, an investment company acting for a number of investment trusts; a non-executive director of a number of companies listed on The Stock Exchange, and has also acted in executive and consultancy roles for a variety of financial institutions.

The board of trustees is made up of 7 members, including representatives from both business and medical backgrounds