(Simon Allen pictured in Fisher House, QEHB Charity's 'home away from home' for military patients and families)

If you’ve supported QEHB Charity for a while, you may remember the £6.5 million QE Cancer Appeal drive to fund two pieces of state-of-the-art equipment called CyberKnife and TomoTherapy. TomoTherapy is a combined radiotherapy machine and CT scanner, enabling the patient to receive a scan before every radiotherapy treatment using TomoTherapy, which in turn improves the accuracy of the treatment, reducing the dose of radiation that will affect healthy tissue around a tumour. The innovative machine can be used to treat many different tumour sites, meaning it is able to help a variety of patients with different cancers and treatment needs.

One patient who has benefitted from TomoTherapy, which was purchased thanks to countless generous charitable donations, is Simon Allen, who travelled to the QE from Gloucestershire to receive treatment for prostate cancer.

“I was diagnosed back in July 2015 and have been receiving radiotherapy treatment here at the QE since April 2016,” Simon reflected. “Luckily I have been able to stay in the Bromley Wing – otherwise I would have been facing an hour and a half’s journey each way, every day for the eight weeks of treatment.

“I feel very fortunate to have had access to TomoTherapy; they really are top of the range machines. The radiologists are able to adjust each treatment by millimetres so it’s tailored to the individual person, it’s much more accurate and targeted. The side effects on your adjacent organs are much less likely to be targeted, too.”

For Simon, having access to the Bromley Wing, a wing specifically for radiotherapy patients to stay in, which is supported by QEHB Charity, has been invaluable. He said: “You’re in and out of the TomoTherapy machine in 15 minutes, including the pre-scan x-ray, which isn’t very long but it takes four hours for me to prepare for radiotherapy as I need to rehydrate. A big part of maintaining my wellbeing has been staying in the Bromley Wing. The treatment is every week day and it would be far from ideal to have to travel here from home that frequently. It’s really great to be able to meet other people going through the same thing as well.

“From large pieces of equipment like TomoTherapy to the ‘added extras’ like furniture in the Bromley Wing, with QEHB Charity it’s clear where donations are being spent. I would heartily encourage anyone to donate – I’ve been hugely impressed by the whole hospital and the work of the Charity is very visible.”

To find out more about or make a donation to the QE Cancer Appeal, please go to qehb.org/qecancer

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