A NEW service is to be launched to help thousands of cancer patients in North Yorkshire.

York Against Cancer has commissioned a £700,000 mobile unit to bring chemotherapy closer to patients’ homes.

The 15-foot high truck is slightly larger than a heavy goods vehicle, and expands to three times its road width, offering patients chemotherapy without them having to travel to hospital.

It will operate as an additional department at some hospitals and move between other sites.

A similar unit run by a charity in Manchester has treated more than 2,000 patients in 12 months, operated for more than 1,800 hours, travelled more than 7,000 miles, and saved patients journeys totalling 30,000 miles.

Karen Cowley, directorate manager of specialist medicine at York Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, is overseeing the introduction of the unit, and called it an “opportunity to develop and improve” existing chemotherapy services.

The unit should be in service next summer.