A TAUNTON-based charity today (Thursday, October 16) launches a £500,000 appeal for a scanner that will avoid cancer patients travelling to Bristol for the first stage of radiotherapy.

The County Gazette-backed Somerset Unit for Radiotherapy Equipment (SURE) needs the cash for a Big Bore CT Scanner/Simulator by March 2017.

It will replace the existing scanner in the Beacon Centre cancer unit at Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, which SURE provided in May 2009 and will reach the end of its life by 2017.

The CT Scanner - the first step in planning radiotherapy treatment - helps accurately locate tumours, providing information for individual treatment plans.

Thanks to hundreds of fundraising supporters, SURE has provided several items of equipment for the Beacon Centre.

Chairman Paul Alway said: “Raising £½million in 2½ years won’t be easy, but SURE supporters continue to amaze everyone with their fundraising and prove a community-led charity can achieve whatever they set out to do.

“As a result, the Beacon Centre is equipped to provide excellent treatment and SURE has been nominated for Charity of the Year in this year’s Somerset Business Awards.”

SURE was established in 2000 to build and equip a specialist cancer centre for Somerset so patients would no longer have to travel to Bristol for treatment, with the Beacon Centre opening in 2009 – thanks to tireless campaigning by founder and current committee member Barrie Palmer and other past committee members and supporters.

At that time SURE funded the £450,000 Big Bore CT Scanner/ Simulator and has since provided over 40 pieces of equipment and software for radiotherapy treatment, including a machine for the treatment of skin cancer.

Earlier this year SURE, which donates 99.5p of every £1 raised, passed the milestone of £2million raised since becoming a registered charity in 2004.

SURE's voluntary committee works closely with the Beacon Centre’s radiotherapy department to identify and fund improvements in treatment that will lead to better patient outcomes.

In 2012 SURE funded a Mould Room – in memory of Eric Saffin former treasurer and fundraiser - so that screening masks can be made for patients with facial and throat cancers.

In March this year an advanced treatment, VMAT, was introduced, where the radiation sweeps around the patient in an arc, giving accurate treatment to tumours and cutting down on effects of radiation on surrounding tissue and organs.

It also lowers treatment times, allowing more patients to be treated in a day.

However, the time taken to calculate the treatment plans for VMAT were much longer than previous treatments, so SURE has committed to provide £60,000 of additional computer equipment to speed up planning, benefitting more patients in the future.

Also this spring, SURE agreed to fund the preparatory work and testing for the introduction in the Beacon Centre of SABR, which allows high doses of radiation to be used to treat smaller tumours, particularly in the lungs and is likely to be available from next March.

For more information visit www.surecharity.org.uk