The Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust Board has been told of plans that are being put in place to enable the centralisation of breast surgery services, creating a centre of excellence for treatment at St Michael's Hospital in Hayle.

Consultant breast surgeon, Mr Iain Brown, said, "Cornwall has built an excellent reputation in breast cancer care, stemming from the opening of the Mermaid Centre nearly 9 years ago. The breast service has been a leader in diagnostic procedures such as sentinel node biopsy and more recently as one of only a few centres nationally to be carrying out isotope localisation - a procedure that involves an injection of a harmless radioactive marker' to pinpoint a cancer during surgery. Working together with the specialist multi-disciplinary cancer team at the Sunrise Centre, our breast services have a strong track record of high standards and of meeting cancer care targets."

The success owes much to the work of lead clinicians, Mr Alastair Paterson and Dr Donna Christensen, and the move of the surgical element of breast care to one location at St Michael's is a natural progression in further developing the service.

"The centralisation of breast surgery at St Michael's comes in conjunction with another milestone for breast services in Cornwall and that will be the ability for the first time to offer reconstructive surgery. Providing this aspect of care locally, and at the same time as cancer surgery, has been missing for too long and is a huge step forward not only in terms of of physical treatment but the psychological benefits for women at a very vulnerable and emotional time," said Mr Brown who is a specialist in oncoplastic and reconstructive breast surgery.

Returning breast surgery services to St Michael's Hospital was one of the specific aims in the Primary Care Trust's strategic review and was a development the Trust was eager to support and implement as quickly as possible.

Pat Warwick, general manager for surgery, said, "It makes sense that specialist services like breast surgery are brought together so that expert teams can work in an environment dedicated to that specific group of patients. This is part of our plans to maximise the use of St Michael's and the calm, health and healing atmosphere there provides an ideal setting for women undergoing breast surgery and now that we have additional, modern theatre capacity onsite we can go ahead with transferring all breast surgery services there this summer."