New images of Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital as it earns government and NHS backing
These are the latest images of how the Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital will look and were unveiled after the government and NHS approved the latest stage in its development.
Construction of the hospital on Cambridge Biomedical Campus, is due to begin in 2023 and is expected to be completed in 2025-26. The Department for Health and Social Care and NHS England & NHS Improvement gave the green light last week to the first stage of the business case for the hospital – the strategic outline case.
Health minister Edward Argar said: “This is an important milestone in plans to build a new specialist cancer hospital in Cambridge, which will improve cancer care, speed up diagnosis and save more lives.
“The new hospital is one of 40 we have committed to build across England by 2030, as part of the largest hospital building programme in a generation.”
The next stage for the hospital – the outline business case – is expected to be submitted in early 2022.
A partnership between Cambridge University Hospitals and the University of Cambridge, the seven-storey hospital of around 26,000 square metres will be built on land between the Addenbrooke’s Treatment Centre and the Frank Lee Centre, next to the new AstraZeneca R&D centre, with its main entrance off Keith Day Road.
NHS clinical space will be combined with three new research institutes supporting ambitions set out in the government’s Life Sciences Strategy, and the NHS Long Term Plan.
With a focus on early diagnosis, and bespoke, precision treatments, the research hospital is billed as a key component in helping the UK become a “testbed for oncology innovation”.
Dr Hugo Ford, director of cancer services at Cambridge University Hospitals, said: “Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital is putting the ‘life’ into the government’s Life Sciences Strategy; with CCRH we have a unique opportunity to transform patient care through patient-led design alongside groundbreaking research.”
Professor Richard Gilbertson, head of the Department of Oncology at the University of Cambridge and director of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre, said: “By locating research at the heart of our hospital and clinical spaces we can change the story of cancer for our patients locally and deliver real hope for people across the globe.”
The hospital is likely to cost hundreds of millions of pounds, but that is going through market-testing now. The government announced an initial £120m of funding in October 2020 and the University of Cambridge has committed to raise £50m towards it. Additional fundraising and philanthropy will be needed.
Fiona Carey, patient advisory group co-chair, said: “This is a place that will change the way we find and treat cancer – through patient-centred care, and by bringing world-leading research directly from the bench to the bed. It’s a new, unique hospital with a mission to save countless lives.”
The government committed an initial £3.7billion for its programme to build 40 new hospitals by 2030.
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Three new hospitals on Cambridge Biomedical Campus coming ‘in the next decade’
