Money from city growth and housebuilding has enabled Milton Keynes City Council to provide Milton Keynes University Hospital with £15.7m towards cancer and acute care.
This week, a new £17m radiotherapy centre at Milton Keynes University Hospital officially opened, saving cancer patients a 70-mile round trip to Oxford for treatment. It’s expected to save local people around 6,500 such trips each year.
The City Council collects money from housebuilders when they build new homes in the city to invest in facilities like the radiotherapy centre. In the last five years it has provided £15.7m to the Milton Keynes University Hospital Trust this way. It previously gave £5m towards the Hospital’s emergency assessment centre which opened in late 2022, and £5m towards its bespoke cancer centre which opened in early 2020.
The new radiotherapy centre is an extension of the cancer centre and is run by Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It has a state-of-the-art medical linear accelerator and a CT scanner alongside consultation rooms.
“As a growing city, we believe it’s critical that we have the right services and infrastructure available to residents. Our investment in this state-of-the-art facility brings cancer treatments closer to home for vulnerable patients – saving them time and reducing stress. I’d like to thank our healthcare partners for delivering this important expansion to Milton Keynes University Hospital.”