A condemned tower block at Carlisle's Cumberland Infirmary is set to be replaced with a new state of the art cancer centre.

Up to £50m will be spent overhauling cancer services, meaning many patients will no longer need to travel outside the county.

It is part of a wider investment of up to £105m in health services across north and west Cumbria announced by the Government.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and NHS England boss Simon Stevens confirmed the funding - including between £30m and £50m to improve access to chemo and radiotherapy - yesterday.

Stephen Eames, chief executive of North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust, said there will be a brand new building with state of the art kit. It will also be linked directly to some of the country's top specialists in Newcastle as part of a new partnership.

"It's a large amount of money so we are going to completely overhaul the cancer facilities at Carlisle hospital," he said.

"It's going to be integral to the hospital. What we will be looking to do is knock down the tower block, which isn't really fit for purpose anyway, and replace it with a brand new building."

Mr Eames said it would happen over the next 18 months, meaning the new building will be complete in early 2019.

However some of the improvements will come online earlier, with a new LINAC (Linear Accelerator) radiotherapy machine set to be in place at the city hospital by November this year.

In February, the News & Star revealed that the redundant tower block on the infirmary site had been condemned shortly after the 2015 floods, when excessive rain penetrated the building and electrics.

Bosses said then that they planned to flatten the building, but no timescale or alternative use had been confirmed.

Mr Eames said they are now working alongside clinicians here and in Newcastle on exactly what treatments the centre will provide, but insisted it will benefit people across the whole patch.

"Using modern technology, we will be directly linked to the cancer centre in Newcastle. A lot of people who currently travel for cancer care won't have to," he confirmed.

Asked if cancer treatments and appointments currently available in west Cumbria would continue, he said they would and stressed that cancer services were not being centralised in Carlisle.


Stephen Eames Instead he said many west Cumbrians who travel outside the county would be able to receive treatment nearer home.

The funding is part of a national £325m capital investment plan from the Government, aimed at improving patient care.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “This funding will support strong local plans to help the NHS modernise and transform care for patients.

"A measure of success of these transformation partnerships is that people can see and feel improvements being made in their local area – there are already excellent examples of this across the country and this money will allow them to go further and faster.”

The Government said this wave of NHS funding was being aimed at areas with the "strongest" Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STPs), including north, west and east Cumbria.

Mr Eames, local STP lead, said the vision is to create an integrated health and care system, and this investment was part of that.

He added: "The STP has delivered about 25 per cent of the capital available to health services in England this year. That's huge slice of money for Cumbria."

NHS England Chief Executive Simon Stevens said they were "putting their money where their mouth is" by backing these plans.

“Today we’re firing the starting gun on the first wave of major service upgrades and care redesign. This is the first down payment of much needed investment in modern equipment and NHS facilities, with more promised in the autumn and beyond," he said.