The charity’s mission is to help deliver a cancer centre where supportive care and complementary therapies are available alongside chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments under one roof.
Ark Cancer Centre Charity is raising £5million towards a cancer treatment centre that will be built by Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (HHFT) at Basingstoke hospital.
The charity’s £5m will ensure the provision of a range of complementary and support therapies in one inspirational building that will offer a therapeutic, healing environment.
Chemotherapy treatment is already available in Basingstoke and Winchester, and while radiotherapy is available in Basingstoke, most patients still have to travel to Southampton or Guildford for their treatment.
The new centre will enhance the care received by patients and their families throughout their cancer treatment journey.
Core cancer treatments together with supportive care and complementary therapies will be provided in a calm and uplifting environment which will positively reinforce the treatment process.
Research has proved that the healing process for patients and their ability to cope with illness improves in a psychologically supportive environment. The design within this cancer centre will be nurturing, therapeutic and stress-reducing.
We want everyone who visits the cancer treatment centre to feel welcome and relaxed. Patients will not only receive care and support but they will also find peaceful areas to wait with their families before and after treatment.
Merv Rees is a world-leading consultant liver surgeon based in Basingstoke and an Ark Cancer Centre Charity trustee. Here he explains a little bit of history of the Ark campaign, and the current progress of the cancer treatment centre.
ARK Cancer Centre Charity launched in 2012 with the goal of raising £5million to help fund a much-needed unique local cancer treatment centre to serve people in the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (HHFT) area. Achieving that goal is as important today as it was seven years ago.
Thanks to the wonderful support of the public, Ark Cancer Centre Charity has so far raised just over £2million towards the £5m target – a tremendous, and humbling, achievement – please check out Ark’s website for more details.
The vast majority of the funds raised so far have come from individual and collective fundraisers and donations – and Ark Day will now provide a new opportunity for even more people to get involved and make a difference.
The charity’s motto is ‘For the people, by the people’ and local people have really shown that they support the HHFT cancer treatment centre project, and they want it to be built.
From the outset, the aspiration was to build the new cancer treatment centre alongside a new HHFT Critical Treatment Hospital (CTH) on land near to Junction 7 of the M3 on the outskirts of Basingstoke. This would have put the new hospital and cancer centre in the middle of the HHFT area, making both easily accessible to all of our residents.
While the Junction 7 location was the preferred option, all involved in the cancer treatment centre project always stated that if this did not prove to be achievable, we would proceed with exploring an alternative location.
In November 2017, after a long-running review process involving various health providing partners, the local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) announced that, at this time, they did not want to go to consultation on plans to build the CTH.
The decision of the CCGs was disappointing for HHFT and Ark Cancer Centre Charity. However, Alex Whitfield, chief executive of HHFT which will provide the bulk of the funding, confirmed that the cancer treatment centre will still go ahead, and stated the cancer treatment centre project is one of the trust’s priorities.
Since the November 2017 decision, everyone involved in the cancer treatment centre project has been working on progressing our alternative option plans which will see the new cancer treatment centre located on the Basingstoke hospital site.
Good progress is being made and I am confident that there will be significant developments in 2019. I am also in no doubt that Ark Cancer Centre Charity and its supporters will continue to play a key role in delivering the new centre – one that will make a massive difference to the lives of many local cancer patients and their loved ones.
Thank you for supporting Ark Day and Ark’s £5m campaign.
We have one goal, and one vision. Let’s get this cancer treatment centre built!
More details…
Ark Day is an event that is being organised by a committee of volunteers.
All money being raised is for Ark Cancer Centre Charity, registered charity number 1149758.