CHEMOTHERAPY is coming to cancer patients’ doorsteps in an Essex first.

A £260,000 mobile unit has launched to make the notoriously gruelling treatment more manageable for hundreds of patients.

The bus will be based at Tiptree, Clacton, Halstead and Stanway, on different weekdays to save patients at Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust having to go to its main treatment site at the town’s general hospital.

Two nurses from Colchester’s trust will staff the bus, which will be stationed between 9.30am and 3.30pm to treat pre-booked patients.

Inside it has armchairs for patients to receive their treatment, the necessary equipment and decor to make it less clinical.

The Mark Benevolent Fund charity paid for the bus - the 11th it has launched across the country.

The aim is for there to be a mobile chemotherapy bus in every English county by 2025.

Once on the road, the buses are maintained by the Hope for Tomorrow charity, with running costs at £15,000 a year.

The bus for Colchester area patients was officially launched Tuesday and was named Maureen, after Maureen Dore, who was one of project team who designed the first ever mobile cancer unit.

Maureen died in 2010 and was a nurse and long-term supporter of Hope for Tomorrow.

She attended Colchester High School for Girls and trained at Essex County Hospital.

Her sister, Liz Burton, travelled from her home in Hertfordshire to cut the ribbon.

Jan Barker, 72, from Messing, was also at the launch to describe how the bus will help her.

The gran-of-three has an incurable but manageable type of bone marrow cancer and started chemotherapy in January.

At the same time she has more drugs to help.

She said: “Because this cancer attacks my bones, I have a monthly infusion of a bone strengthening drug. I have to have that for two years so I will be receiving it on this bus for another 18 months.

“I will be on this monthly at Tiptree Tesco car park. At the moment I have on average a 30-minute journey to the hospital and then a long walk from the car park to the unit so I will save all that time - and can even go shopping afterwards!”

“Down the line if I need further treatment, I can go to Tiptree,” she added.

Patients have already started to book the bus which hits the road next week.

Other benefits include that patients will meet others from their areas and could form support groups.

Patients’ carers will not have to wait as long for their treatment and the whole process should be more efficient.

The aim is to eventually treat 15 patients a day.

The bus will be at:

n Butler Road car park, Halstead, Tuesdays

n Tesco car park, Tiptree, Wednesdays

n Outside the East of England Co-op at Stanway Retail Park, Peartree Road, Stanway, Thursdays.

n Tesco car park, Brook Retail Park, Clacton, Fridays