The Cobalt Appeal Fund - 40 Years of Fighting Cancer Locally

The Charity was founded over 40 years ago when doctors at Cheltenham General Hospital wanted the very best available radiotherapy treatment facilities for their cancer patients. The National Health Service budget could not rise to it so Dr Fred Hanna, who was responsible for Radiotherapy in the county, decided to enlist the help of the local community.

In March 1964, the Cobalt Unit Appeal Fund was launched by a committee of prominent local figures led by the late Alex Mills, OBE and Consultant Radiotherapist Dr Fred Hanna, OBE, Howard Crooks and other Cancer Consultants. Its aim was to raise funds to buy a Cobalt Radiotherapy Unit to treat patients with cancer. The nearest cobalt unit was then 50 miles away, in Bristol.

The response by the public, local societies and organisations, local professional people and civic leaders was fantastic. Within 1 year of the initial appeal an incredible £88,000 had been raised – together they had done it!

The Dream Becomes Reality!

In September 1966, a completely equipped radiotherapy centre, with the cobalt unit, was officially opened by the Duke of Beaufort and formally handed over to the National Health Service by the Appeal Committee.

As the vital work of the new centre gained impetus, the appeal continued and so did the popular support. In 1969, an extension for radioisotope and electronic work was added. This reflected the increasing importance of the centre in terms of clinical research directed to the early detection of certain cancers offering an improved prospect of effective treatment.

It was clear by 1972 that another newly developed, powerful device could assist with earlier diagnosis and avoid exploratory surgery. An appeal was made for the purchase of a Radioisotope Scintiscanner.

Initially, the centre had served patients in North Gloucestershire and South Worcestershire. By 1974, the area had been extended to cover Herefordshire and the Welsh Border with 250,000 more potential patients than the original unit was designed to serve. Extensions were now added and in 1975 a further £55,000 was raised for a two-storey building. This included an operating theatre and new radioisotope accommodation. Early detection of cancer was the urgent requirement emphasised by these additions. As voluntary support grew, continuing fundraising made it possible to build a new clinic and out-patient department. This was handed over to the Health Service in 1977.

In 1978, an appeal raised £212,000 for a Three-Dimensional Simulator for use in “mapping out” cancers and harnessing a 4 million volt linear accelerator as the source of high radiation doses which are administered with millimetre precision. HRH The Princess Anne helped present this facility to the Health Service in 1978.

By 1982, the fund also provided £275,000 for an X-Ray Computerised Tomography Scanner used in the diagnosis of cancer and other diseases. The Appeal also met the running costs of this equipment for a further 10 years.

Focus on Breast Cancer Treatment

In 1984, attention focused on Breast Cancer – a disease which attacks thousands of women where all too often the remedy was surgery.

The first move was to equip the Centre with the means of treating breast cancer by radiotherapy instead of surgery, in every case appropriate. This treatment when associated with the means of very early diagnosis would eventually remove much of the fear and distress of breast cancer and save many lives.

The equipment consisted of a 20 million volt linear accelerator, specially housed with its ancillary facilities and the means of running it. The cost of this was £1 million – the NHS offered to pay 50%. Accordingly, an appeal for £500,000 was launched in 1984 with one third of the sum required being raised in the first three months! Treatment was by way of high energy X-Rays or by electron beamed therapy. The former use is appropriate to cancers in the lung, ovary, uterus, bladder and prostate and the latter facilitates localised treatment of the breast and brain without damaging underlying organs and tissues. The linear accelerator was inaugurated by HRH The Princess Margaret on the 20th June 1986. It has significantly reduced the need for mastectomy in women suffering from breast cancer.

In 1990/91 a selectron machine £116,000, a gamma camera £22,500 and a final installment of £29,000 for a mobile mammography unit, were all paid for, in addition to £40,000 to cover the maintenance of the Toshiba scanner, an ultrasound machine for the Mammography Unit at Hereford at a cost of £10,000 as well as the payment of the year’s instalment of a ten year agreement to fund the running costs of that Unit. The period of support for the Unit at Hereford has since been extended and is now in its fourteenth year.

Cancer Prevention Services

Complementing the high technological services of the Centre with less dramatic, but no less vital work, the Appeal Fund established a range of community support activities committed to cancer prevention and counselling. These are based at Linton House, which was acquired from Cheltenham College in the early 1980s. They include clinics for smokers (one third of all cancers would not occur if we did not smoke), workshops for the encouragement of sensible eating and drinking (faulty diet can lead to bowel cancer), and clinics for the early detection of breast cancer through breast self examination and breast awareness. Advice is also given to men over 50 on prostate disease (by far the majority of this is benign) and to the younger male generation on the symptoms of testicular cancer.

Our highly successful Cancer Prevention services provide excellent leaflets, factsheets and information on all the major cancers, as well as awareness and prevention advice. These can all be found in our cancer prevention section, accessed through the top navigation bar.

Smoking amongst children had become a serious problem and in March 1987, a smokebusters campaign was launched aimed at children in the 9 – 14 age group. The Counties’ primary schools were targeted and the Smokebusters Club now has a thriving membership of 1500.

MRI – Our Biggest Challenge Yet

The policy of the Charity has always been to try to remain at the cutting edge of technology from which local residents would benefit. By the end of the 1980s the Board had learned of the advantages of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), a modality not readily available in the area. In May 1990 an appeal for £1.5 million was launched to obtain one of these unique new whole body scanners which uses magnetism to give doctors crystal clear pictures of the human body. The highly advanced technique of MRI involves no X-rays nor surgery. It has no known side effects and allows doctors to look at “slices” of the body from any angle, in minute detail, on a TV screen. The doctor is then able to highlight specific tissue for the early signs of disease at a stage when quick and accurate treatment can save lives. It moreover enables diseases other than cancer to be tackled and is of considerable benefit when doctors are dealing with problems such as sports injuries and conditions following motor accidents. Its greatest impact was found to be on diseases of the central nervous system, the neck, head and spine.

The whole cost of its acquisition was borne by the Appeal Fund. By the end of 1992 sufficient funds were available to enable the scanner to be acquired and an associated clinic building was also erected. By then it had become possible to install a scanner in a mobile form and the advantages of being able to take it to differing hospital sites were quickly seen. Previous policy had been to find the need for a piece of equipment, put out an appeal for the money, buy the item and then hand it over to the NHS. After discussions with the local doctors and considerable deliberation it was decided that the Appeal Fund would run the service and the scanners would be taken to various different hospitals thereby benefiting the communities which those hospitals served. The benefits rapidly became appreciated and the demand for the service increased to such an extent that a second scanner was acquired in the autumn of 1995. Hospitals within the beneficial area received a subsidised service and because of the Medical Charity’s close involvement with the fight against cancer, all treatment oncology patients residing in the beneficial area are scanned entirely at the Appeal Fund’s expense when referred by their oncologist. To enable these subsidies to be effected, private patients are scanned at commercial rates both at Linton House and at the private hospitals. The Appeal Fund now has five high field state of the art scanners funded from this income, they are updated at regular intervals and we are responsible for providing a service at twelve different sites. Our service has also achieved ISO 9001:2000 quality assurance status not for equipment but for the quality of the mobile MRI scanning service which we provide. Our last report was exceptional, noting our service to be exemplary. For more information on MRI scanning please use the top navigation bar.

Advanced Cancer Treatment

The MRI service has been the diagnostic tool to help the medical profession and it seemed right that the Appeal Fund should attempt to complement this with treatment equipment. It was all the more appropriate bearing in mind that there was a sizeable rebuilding programme going on at Cheltenham General Hospital. The Cobalt Unit agreed to provide an advanced cancer treatment machine for the Oncology Centre at the Hospital at a cost of £765,000.00. An order was placed for this and the installation took place before the turn of the century.

Supporting the Gloucestershire Breast Screening Service

Cobalt Unit Appeal Fund has always been closely involved with the fight against breast cancer. Linton House is used by the Gloucestershire Breast Screening Service as their headquarters and local women between the age of 50 and 64 are screened here every three years. Additionally the Charity provided for the Breast Screening Service a mobile mammography van which toured the outlying areas of the County offering the same screening service. At the end of 1998 the Trustees agreed to a package of improvements to support the service based at Linton House Clinic and this included the provision of a second mammography room, and improvements in biopsy and film viewing equipment. The total cost was expected to be in the region of £200,000 and this would include the provision of a second mobile mammography unit. Meanwhile the Charity continued to support the clinical mammography service at Hereford Hospital to the sum of £18,000 per year.

Cobalt funds dedicated nurse for blood cancer patients

Specialist nurse Rosie Howard has been appointed to care for Gloucestershire patients with cancers of the blood and lymphatic system.

The Cobalt Appeal Fund has pledged £100,000 to fund the salary and costs of the new post, initially for two years.

Rosie, who is based at Cheltenham General Hospital, is dedicated to meeting the needs of people suffering from leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma.

The Fund decided to support the post after discussions about where its money is most needed with the Three Counties Cancer Network and the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Rosie co-ordinates the care that patients with blood and lymphatic cancers receive in hospital, the community and at home.

As well as providing expert clinical care, such as blood transfusions and investigations, she gives guidance, information and support to people dealing with the difficulties of cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Cobalt Steps In To Help Save Prostate Cancer Unit

State-of-the-art treatment for men with prostate cancer is continuing in Gloucestershire after the Cobalt Appeal Fund stepped in with a £50,000 grant.

The treatment, known as brachytherapy, is carried out at a specialist unit at Cheltenham General Hospital, funded by the Gloucestershire Prostate Cancer Trust (GPCT).

Cobalt Appeal Fund Chairman Dick Greenslade (left) and Fundraising Co-ordinator Karen Davies hand over the cheque to Brian Chaplin and Tony Mason.

The Trust, a charity launched in 2001, feared that the unit may have to close after a bid for NHS funding was turned down in 2005.

Now Cobalt has assured the unit’s short-term future by donating £50,000 on top of the £25,000 it granted to the charity in 2002.

Brachytherapy involves implanting radioactive seeds directly into the prostate gland, allowing the cancer to be controlled by a closely focused dose of radiation. Potential unwelcome side effects associated with intrusive surgery and traditional radiotherapy are considerably reduced.

Until the GPCT set up in the Cheltenham unit in 2003, men had to travel to Leeds or Guildford for this treatment.

Cobalt Funds New Detection Tool For Breast Cancer

A new technique that may spare women with early breast cancer from extensive surgery has been introduced in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, after the Cobalt Appeal Fund spent £80,000 on the equipment needed to carry out special biopsies.

The money paid for four handheld gamma probes which allows doctors to perform a sentinel node biopsy which checks a small number of lymph nodes to assess whether the disease has spread beyond the breast to under the armpit.

In the past, women have had to have all the lymph nodes in the area removed, whether they were cancerous or not.

Consultant Surgeon at Cheltenham General Hospital Mr Charlie Chan said “Recent trials have shown that sentinel node biopsy is a very reliable way of identifying the nodes most likely to be affected by cancer. The benefits of this technique for those women not requiring further surgery are immense.”

Patients Quiz Top Doctors on Breast Cancer Drug

Breast cancer patients were given the chance to quiz top doctors about the new drug Herceptin at special public meetings in Cheltenham and Cirencester in late 2005.

The meetings, hosted by the Cobalt Appeal Fund, focused on the use and availability of the drug, which is currently mainly given to treat advanced breast cancer.

The panel of Gloucestershire specialists attending the meetings was made up of Breast Cancer Consultant Surgeon Mr James Bristol, Senior Consultant Oncologists Dr Roger Owen and Dr Sean Elyan, Consultant Oncologist Dr Peter Jenkins and Consultant Pathologist Dr Victoria Petersen.

Interest in Herceptin has increased dramatically following the recent announcement by Secretary of State for Health Patricia Hewitt that all women with early stage breast cancer are to be tested to see if they would benefit from the drug.