The Christie Foundation Trust Annual Report and Accounts 2021-22

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust Annual Report & Accounts 2021-22

which has been particularly important as part of our drive to keep people safe during the pandemic. Another new building project which took major strides forward this year was our new research facility, currently known as the Paterson Redevelopment Project (PRP), which is now being built at The Christie to replace the fire-damaged Paterson building, which will be a purpose-built biomedical cancer research facility bringing together three powerhouses of innovation – The Christie, The University of Manchester and Cancer Research UK. Construction work is on track on the new facility which will be home to several hundred scientists, doctors, nurses and support staff who will be at the heart of our ambition to lead the world in clinical trial recruitment, supporting the development of new and kinder cancer therapies. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, our research and innovation team was already operating more than 650 clinical trials at any one time and was one of the biggest cancer clinical trials centres in Europe. Through our NIHR Manchester Clinical Research Facility at The Christie, staff and patients benefit from a large, high quality, dedicated clinical research environment where patients can participate in complex and early phase clinical trials. Research teams have continued to achieve the recruitment of the first patients to a number of UK, European and global clinical trials meaning that The Christie patients have had unique access to many pioneering therapies. Much of our research work is funded through donations and our Charity has continued to support the work of the Trust through its fundraising activities and delivers projects, equipment and improvements that are over and above what the NHS funds. Our Charity has faced another difficult year, with many fundraising events and activities put on

the highest mark given to any trust in England. This was for the time patients had been on the waiting list before being admitted to hospital and patients feeling that staff told them who to contact if they were worried about their condition or treatment after they left hospital. The Christie was also the highest scoring trust in the North West in 11 of the 45 survey questions. The Christie is proud to be the largest radiotherapy provider in the NHS. We are also the largest provider in Europe, with one in 20 radiotherapy treatments delivered at The Christie. We are one of only two cancer centres worldwide to offer both MR-linac and high energy proton beam therapy (the other is MD Anderson in Texas, US). This year saw the continued expansion of our state-of-art radiotherapy treatment using the MR-guided linear accelerator (MR-linac) which is the first machine of its kind to do real-time MRI scans while it targets X-ray beams at tumours, making it more accurate and reducing side effects. Being able to more specifically target tumours and avoid more healthy tissue around them means the machine can use target X-rays better. The £5.3M machine was part-funded by donations to The Christie Charity and this year we were delighted to able to begin to treat patients with lung cancer with this important new technique. As our patient numbers continue to grow, providing care closer to home is becoming ever more important and this year we were delighted when our plans for a new Christie cancer centre in Macclesfield came to fruition when we opened the doors to patients for the first time in December. The new building provides a purpose built unit for more than 1,500 patients attending up to 40,000 appointments every year. During 2021/22, we have also seen the further development of our services to provide chemotherapy closer to and in patients’ homes,

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