FORMER patients returned to a £25million radiotherapy centre to celebrate its first anniversary.

The facility at Colchester General Hospital has served 1,800 patients in its first year, a whopping 23,300 appointments at a rate of more than 60 a day.

Among the guests at the celebratory tea party in the centre’s courtyard garden on Friday was one man treated there on the day it opened.

David Dewitt, 66, of Abbey Meadow, Sible Hedingham, had radiotherapy for seven and a half weeks following a diagnosis of prostate cancer.

He said: “It’s a lovely facility and more like going into a hotel than a hospital. It was a first-class service and all the staff were top drawer.”

Mr Dewitt, who will return to the hospital for a check-up in November, said he felt good and was enjoying playing golf.

Sonia Tankard, lead for radiotherapy, said: “We set out to create a centre which represented our values of care, support and innovation.

“We wanted patients who are undergoing a lifechanging event to feel they are at the centre of the treatment.

“The overwhelmingly positive comments we receive on a daily basis indicate we have achieved what we set out to do.

“The combination of light, space and technology assures radiotherapy patients that our trust is serious about cancer care.”

The two-storey centre opened with four brandnew linear accelerators, the machines used to give radiotherapy to cancer patients.

It has a fifth treatment suite that can accommodate an additional linear accelerator, which can be installed when demand rises.

It replaced the radiotherapy centre two miles away at Essex County Hospital, which had three ageing machines.