The EDP Breast Cancer Appeal, launched in November 2003, raised £200,000 to create a special unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, King's Lynn.

In 10 months - at the rate of £4700 a week - your donations have helped transform facilities for thousands of women facing the trauma of breast cancer.

This was the situation at the start of the appeal:

Breast cancer facilities at the Queen Elizabeth are spread around the site and too cramped for the rapidly growing number of patients who use them. Anxious patients have to share a waiting room; there is no counselling area near the consultant’s rooms and conditions are desperately cramped, hot and uncomfortable.

“At the moment there’s no spare capacity within the Breast Cancer Department so if we have a busy day or a patient falls unwell, there is nowhere they can go to recover,” said consultant radiologist Geoff Hunnam. “Between the different stages of the process, patients currently have to pass through many different wards to reach the facilities, which can be extremely distressing.”

Although the length of waiting lists are not dissimilar to those nationally, in 2002, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital breast cancer unit saw 1636 new patients with 187 diagnosed with Breast Cancer. A 5% increase is expected each year and referrals have doubled in the past eight years, a further indication that suitable facilities are vital.

Centre plan - click for larger image

Space has already been identified for a dedicated, purpose-built unit at the hospital. It will have three new consulting rooms, a counselling area, waiting room, separate X-ray facilities and changing rooms.

Once it opens the whole process from screening through diagnosis, counselling and treatment will be faster and less traumatic for thousands of patients. Without this appeal, those patients would have had to endure years of difficult conditions before the unit would have been considered for funding.

The appeal was launched on November 14, 2003, with the aim of starting work within 18 months.

Appeal supporters

Among those who have backed the appeal is actress Claire Goose, radio presenter Becky Jago and Anglia TV's Becky Mantin.

In backing the appeal, Casualty actress Claire, who is a West Norfolk GP’s daughter, has told of her own scare when she discovered lumps which eventually proved to be negative. “Having experienced something similar myself, I can understand how important it will be to have this unit set up,” she said. “Having the practical and compassionate help under one roof is absolutely vital.”

Becky Jago (Anglia TV, BBC Newsround, Capital Radio) lost her mother to the disease, at the age of just 54. “I am very proud to be associated with this campaign and I’m pleased that the EDP has picked up on the need of thousands of women in this area,” she said. “I hope the people of East Anglia get behind it and raise the £200,000.”

The EDP’s appeal partners are Rotary clubs across the region, as well as radio station KLFM 96.7 and the Norwich & Peterborough Building Society who are kindly enabling people to pay into the fund at their offices.

Matthew Bullock, chief executive of Norwich and Peterborough Building Society said: "We're delighted to be supporting the EDP with this very worthwhile appeal. As a local, mutual building society we feel it is very important to support those in the communities where we have branches. A dedicated breast cancer unit at King's Lynn hospital will be invaluable to women in the area who are affected by the disease and to their families and loved ones."

EDP Editor Peter Franzen asks all readers to support the appeal: “This fund will give the hospital the kind of unit which is already standard in all other main hospitals in the region.

“Breast Cancer patients in West Norfolk surely deserve the kind of facilities and care, which the new unit will provide. Please help us to help them.”