A RADIOTHERAPY unit will be built at Worcestershire Royal Hospital after health chiefs gave plans the green light.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust gave the formal go-ahead for the unit to be built at Worcester after its meeting yesterday.

The decision has already been ratified by leaders at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, the trust’s project partner.

Providing radiotherapy in Worcestershire is considered important because currently patients have to travel out of county to Cheltenham and Wolverhampton at a time when they are very ill, which can cause them both extra expense and stress.

Paul Crawford, aged 69, of Highfield Close, Droitwich, who had to travel to Cheltenham for his radiotherapy for throat cancer, welcomed the decision to build the unit in Worcester.

He had to travel more than 3,000 miles backwards and forwards to Cheltenham over six weeks while he battled the illness.

He said: “It makes sense that it should be in Worcester.

I think it was a robust decision by all the people involved. I think it is the best solution for the location of the site.”

The recommendation to build the unit at the Royal has met resistance in the north of the county.

Redditch MP Karen Lumley presented a petition to the trust containing 2,000 signatures asking for the unit to be based at the town’s Alexandra hospital.

Mr Adel Makar, consultant urological surgeon and lead cancer clinician at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “There has been a very long process to determine the most appropriate site for this new facility and now that a decision has been made we can really focus on developing the best possible service for the people of Worcestershire.”

The unit is scheduled to be up and running by December 2013.

The trust has secured land next to the existing hospital site which will provide car parking spaces which would otherwise have been lost when the unit is built on what is now the Royal’s accident and emergency car park.

The trust will now prepare a business case which will be looked at by regional health chiefs from NHS West Midlands, the strategic health authority.

The trust will also have to seek planning permission for the unit.