CANCER treatment services in the North-East could receive a major boost with plans to reopen a much-needed regional training centre.

The Northern Echo has learned that a joint bid by Northumbria, Teesside and Sheffield Hallam universities to open a new school of radiography, in Newcastle, has been lodged with the NHS regional office.

If successful, it should provide more trained radiotherapists to work in the region's hospitals.

With breast cancer patients waiting up to 12 weeks to receive radiotherapy in the North-East, compared to four weeks in some other parts of the UK, the move has been welcomed by cancer specialists.

Breast cancer surgeon Clive Griffith, based at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary, said it had been "very short-sighted" to close down the old school of radiography in the mid-1990s.

He said: "We have a problem in radiotherapy in the North-East. We don't have the staff to operate the equipment.

"We need major investment in nursing staff, treatment radiographers, and in flexible working practices to allow us to use equipment seven days a week." Mr Griffith, who sits on a national committee trying to improve the experience of NHS cancer patients, said a new school would go a long way towards solving those staffing problems.

Professor Royston Stephens, dean of the faculty of health, social work and education at Northumbria, said: "The goal is to get something in Newcastle which will provide more students, which can then be fed into the regional workforce and upgrade the standard of care offered to patients."

If it is approved, the radiography training centre will be sited at the Coach Lane Campus, on the outskirts of Newcastle.

Earlier this week, cancer expert Professor Karol Sikora claimed Northern women were more likely to lose their breasts during cancer treatment than women in the South-East because radiotherapy services were over-stretched.

But specialists in the region have denied shortages of specialist radiology staff have increased mastectomy rates, arguing that Northern women prefer surgery to a long course of radiotherapy.