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    14

    Jun 2023

    Last Updated: 15/06/2023
    Health
    Health

    £3.5m gym for cancer patients to open in Harrogate

    by John Plummer

    | 14 Jun, 2023
    Comment

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    A £3.5 million exercise and wellbeing centre is to open in Harrogate in autumn.

    The Yorkshire Cancer Research Centre at Hornbeam Park will offer free, personalised fitness, nutrition and wellbeing support to people with cancer. It aims to help patients prepare for treatment and recover better.

    The building will incorporate a café, shop and donation centre and will also become Yorkshire Cancer Research's new head office. The charity will relocate from its premises at Grove Park Court in Harrogate.

    It currently has 70 staff, including those at its seven shops, and expects to have 100 by March next year, partly due to the new centre, which will create 10 new jobs and 40 volunteering opportunities.

    Its shop sites include Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough.

    People will be able to self-refer to the exercise centre and visit for free, although they will need to sign-up and book.

    Most users are expected to come from within 15 miles of Hornbeam Park and up to 1,500 people are expected to use the service in its first three years.



    The charity is recruiting fitness instructors with specialist cancer knowledge. Many sessions will be one-to-one.

    Everything people do at the centre will be analysed and used to improve understanding of exercise as a treatment for cancer patients.

    Yorkshire Cancer Research plans to open at least four new fitness and wellbeing centres across the region in the next 10 years.



    Dr Kathryn Scott, chief executive at Yorkshire Cancer Research, said:

    "Yorkshire will be at the forefront of exercise as a treatment" and the centre would "inform future cancer treatment in the UK and elsewhere in the world".


    Evidence shows that exercise can increase the success of cancer treatment, reduce side effects and speed up recovery, as well as improving life expectancy.

    The programme builds on the charity’s Active Together service in Sheffield, which was launched in February 2022, in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University’s Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. So far it has helped more than 370 people with cancer.



    Dr Scott said:

    “Despite clear evidence that being physically active is safe and has a positive effect for people with cancer, exercise services are not routinely available and most patients are not as active as they could be following a diagnosis.
    “Our long-term goal is for these programmes to become a standard part of care embedded in and delivered by the NHS across Yorkshire and beyond."