PATIENTS from all over Essex are benefiting from a specialist cancer centre in Colchester.

Those needing radical pelvic surgery have been coming from as far south as Ingatestone, as well as north and mid Essex, to Colchester General Hospital for treatment.

The centre opened in November 2006 and in the first year treated 58 patients - 42 men and 16 women.

A total of 25 - 16 men and nine women - had a cystectomy, the removal of the bladder from patients with bladder cancer.

The other 33 had a radical prostatectomy, which involves removing the prostate from men with prostate cancer.

The centre's lead surgeon, John Corr, a consultant urologist for Colchester University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, presented a study on the 58 patients to the Essex Cancer Network.

He said: "There was a bit of a postcode lottery for cancer services and so they were reconfigured to provide specialist centres. We bid for the urology centre and were successful, so we have patients coming to us from all over.

"These are very rare and complex cases and it's far better to have a specialist centre, where someone carries out 50 or 60 operations, than to have someone who perhaps has only done three or four."

He added: "The data shows that the Colchester centre is performing above the national average in terms of morbidity and mortality, and that most patients get through the surgery with minimal side-effects.

"We have hit all the Government targets. Clearly, the whole team has made an excellent start and we are achieving precisely what we were set up to do."