By Tom Platt, Sky News Reporter. The private clinic, due to open by the end of the year, means cancer patients can be treated in Britain rather than go abroad.
Construction will begin today on the first UK clinic set to provide proton therapy.
The private centre in Newport is expected to open by the end of the year, and could cut costs for the NHS, as cancer patients can be treated in the UK instead of abroad.
Currently, UK cases applying for proton therapy have to signed off by the NHS, but there are strict criteria.
If they are approved, the NHS foots the bill, but otherwise the costs are left with the patient.
When 13-year-old Rashard Henry was diagnosed with a brain tumour his mum Donna believed proton therapy was the best option.
She felt it could target his cancer more effectively and do less damage, and so applied for funding – but Rashard wasn’t accepted.
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She started fundraising for the treatment instead, but when it became a matter of life and death, she was left with no other option than a second course of radiotherapy.
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