Radiotherapy Services

About us

Radiotherapy is part of the Oncology Unit at the Nottingham City Hospital campus.

Radiotherapy is a highly accurate treatment that uses high energy X-rays to treat cancer cells in a specific area. It delivers doses of radiation to cancer cells or a tumour whilst sparing as much normal tissue as possible. The majority of these treatments are delivered with Linear Accelerators or LINACS for short.  These are housed in specially designed rooms called bunkers, we have 7 of these bunkers which allows us to have 6 clinical machines at all times.

The Nottingham Radiotherapy Service is a specialist treatment centre for the East Midlands and we have invested heavily in new technology and equipment in order to be able to provide Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT), Image Guided Radiotherapy (IGRT), and Surface Guided Radiotherapy (SGRT).

Our department serves a population of around 1.3million people and in addition to the standard radiotherapy treatments for the population of Nottinghamshire, we provide the following specialist treatments for a wider population:

  • Total Body Irradiation in preparation for bone marrow transplants
  • Total Skin Electron Therapy
  • Paediatric Radiotherapy
  • High Dose Rate Brachytherapy for a variety of indications
  • Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS)
  • Stereotactic Ablative Radiotherapy (SABR)

Radiotherapy Equipment

•    6 Elekta linear accelerators (All with cone beam image guidance and VMAT treatment capability and 2 with Brainlab EXACTRAC for        Stereotactic Radiosurgery Treatments (SRS), and Surface guided radiotherapy (SGRT) is available on 3 of our machines
•    1 Flexitron HDR brachytherapy unit
•    Superficial x-ray unit
•    2 Canon Aquillion Exceed LB CT scanners with breathing gating 
•    1 Papillon Contact radiotherapy machine

Treatment Planning Equipment

•    RayStation planning system
•    OMP planning workstation for Brachytherapy
•    Monaco planning system

Locations

Following the opening of the Nottingham Radiotherapy Centre, treatment is delivered in two locations on the Nottingham City Hospital Campus.

The Radiotherapy Department is located at the City Hospital campus on the south corridor,  on the lower ground floor, close to the South Entrance. It is at junction S2 on the hospital sitemaps. This houses 4 of our linear accelerator bunkers (Rooms 1, 2, 3, and 4), the HDR brachytherapy suite, superficial unit, and the Papillion contact radiotherapy machine. This is often called the South Department.

Nottingham Radiotherapy Centre is located on the North corridor near Purple Entrance.  It is at junction N19 on the hospital site map. This houses 3 of our linear accelerator’s bunkers (Rooms 5, 6 and 7), our CT scanners, and our clinics. This is often called the North Department.

Patients may need to visit both  departments during their planning and treatment process.