CANCER patients have welcomed plans for a new £200,000 chemotherapy unit in East Lancashire.

A £100,000 appeal has been launched by Rosemere Cancer Foundation to help pay for the centre at Burnley Hospital through public donations, while East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust will pay the rest.

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The hospital has a chemotherapy suite but it is too small to meet the demands of the 3,000 people from East Lancashire who are newly diagnosed with cancer each year.

Karen Fowler, 49, from the Queensgate area of Burnley, had cervical cancer but is now battling secondary lung cancer.

She said: “I had 26 weeks worth of chemotherapy in Burnley. My cancer is incurable but it’s not terminal and it’s being controlled. It will be fantastic to have treatment in a more comfortable environment.”

Currently, many patients travel to the Rosemere centre in Preston or to the Christie hospital in Manchester.

Elaine Bevan, from Colne, has battled breast cancer for 11 years and said she was looking forward to new facilities.

The 52-year-old, who has three children, said: “I have to keep going and although I have been to Preston for treatment, Burnley is easier.

“It will be good to turn up to a family-friendly place.”

Money raised will provide a relaxing, comfortable environment with special furniture such as specially designed treatment chairs and a more spacious environment to enable patients to have more privacy.

There will also be bright surroundings with sensory lighting and wall art as well as easier access and dedicated car parking, and better facilities for staff to enable better treatment.

Louise Halstead, 43, from Barrowford has battled breast cancer but still receives Herceptin treatment.

She said: “The team here are amazing. It doesn’t matter if you are really low or on top of the world staff here make you feel like you are a person and not a cancer patient.

“It makes a difference.”

Rosemere fundraiser and cancer patient Geoffrey Whittaker, 64, from Nelson has cancer of the liver, spleen and lung.

He said: “Fundraising for the unit is the best thing you can do. It will give people like me more time.”