Brave nurse back on duty weeks after groundbreaking cancer treatment

Barbara Green, who is 56, was sent by the Christie Hospital in Manchester for the pioneering proton beam therapy, known as PBT,after she was diagnosed with cancer for the third time in 10 years.

Now, just three months after the treatment for a rare cancer of the spine which had left her in severe pain and on long-term sick, Barbara is back at work in the outpatients department at Burnley General Hospital.

And the grateful nurse has nothing but praise for the treatment she had in Jacksonville, Florida, which she credits for her helping her get back to normal.

She said:"Everyone was so kind and everything was sorted so well with every ‘i’ dotted and ‘t’ crossed.

"I started to feel better halfway through my treatment and I don’t know whether it was the sunshine or the fact that I knew something was being done to treat me.

"Without the PBT I would not be back at work.”

PBT is a specialist form of radiotherapy that targets cancers very precisely, increasing success rates and reducing side-effects.

It targets tumours with less damage to surrounding healthy tissue and is particularly appropriate for certain cancers in children who are at risk of lasting damage to organs that are still growing.

It has been offered overseas to NHS patients who are eligible for treatment in England since 2008 in a programme that has supported around 1,000 patients.

And from August next year the Christie will begin treating patients in Manchester as the UK’s first NHS high-energy centre.

Barbara said she was glad that other cancer patients will soon be able to have the treatment without having to travel so far.

She added: "I can’t praise the care we had in the USA enough.

“But going to America is just such a long way for such a long time and having to travel there just added to the stress.

" I’m so glad that people will soon be able to have what I had without having to travel abroad.”

Barbara had already had breast cancer in 2007 and a double mastectomy five years later.