Radiotherapy Departments
The Royal Marsden’s Radiotherapy Departments at Chelsea and Sutton are the sole NHS radiotherapy providers in the South West London Strategic Health Authority.
Rapid access to radiotherapy is key to achieving long-term survival rates. Our Departments meet waiting times targets for both radical and palliative radiotherapy.
Comprehensive cancer treatment
At The Royal Marsden, radiotherapy is used to treat many different forms of cancer, including skin cancer, head and neck cancer, breast cancer, cervical cancer, anal cancer and prostate cancer. The Royal Marsden is also a specialist referral centre for sarcoma and paediatric radiotherapy.
Most cancers can be treated at either hospital, although some specialist treatments are delivered at only one site for equipment and support reasons. Royal Marsden patients can be transferred between our two hospitals for these specialist treatments if necessary. For instance, all paediatric treatment takes place at Sutton, while patients requiring brachytherapy are treated at Chelsea. Treatment protocols are uniform throughout The Royal Marsden.
Expert-led multidisciplinary team
Radiotherapy treatment is delivered by a multidisciplinary team of doctors (clinical oncologists), medical physicists and therapeutic radiographers. The Royal Marsden is renowned for its highly skilled and innovative staff who are at the heart of all its achievements.
Developing this workforce – in national and international reputation, quality and numbers – underpins our strategy. Our strong multidisciplinary team are continually advancing our ISO accredited service.
State-of-the-art equipment
To assist the clinical team there is a commitment to continual investment in new and replacement equipment. This programme also addresses the Departments’ capacity for delivering radiotherapy courses within government targets, and its ability to maintain its reputation for being at the cutting edge of radiotherapy.
Radiotherapy equipment
Here is a list of the treatment equipment names at each site, with links to images of the units. All the linear accelerators at Sutton are Elekta while the linear accelerators at Chelsea are Varian.
Research and evidence-based treatment
The clinical service is enhanced by the strong research programme jointly within The Royal Marsden and The Institute of Cancer Research, funded by Cancer Research UK.
This enables developments in conformal planning and treatment, IMRT and IGRT, as well as the evaluation and clinical application of cutting-edge treatment modalities such as adaptive radiotherapy and tumour tracking, which aims to adjust the treatment as the tumour moves.
Find out more about research at The Royal Marsden.
Education and training
The Royal Marsden is a centre of excellence for the training of radiotherapy staff. We help train therapeutic radiographers and run frequent workshops on topics such as IMRT, IGRV and dosimetry.