Cancer patients in Oxfordshire could benefit from new drugs and cutting-edge treatments under plans to create a major new hospital and research centre.

The new Oxford Centre for Cancer Medicine to be built at the Churchill Hospital, would see laboratory researchers working side-by-side with doctors.

As a result, patients suffering from different types of cancer could benefit from drug and treatment trials when they are admitted to the hospital. The news follows the announcement by Health Secretary Alan Milburn, revealed in the late edition of yesterday's Oxford Mail, that Government ministers have given the hospital the go-ahead to build a £28m unit for cancer patients.

The long-term idea is to build alongside it a unit for experts specialising in cancer research.

Dr Ken Fleming, Dean of the Oxford University Medical School, said Prof David Kerr, newly-appointed Oxford University Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutic Science, was behind the cancer medicine centre idea.

Prof Kerr, who is coming to Oxford from Birmingham, had a vision to create a new research department linked with the proposed new cancer wards and existing scientific studies at the Churchill.

The new research building would boost existing work into different types of the disease, including bowel, stomach, bladder, breast, lung, ovarian and prostate cancers.

Dr Fleming said: "I think if the plans come off we could have an international centre in Oxford within five to ten years.

"The views we have received back from organisations like the Imperial Cancer Research Fund have already been positive."

Research is already an important part of work at the Churchill. With ICRF financial backing, scientists there have made successful progress to combat a range of cancers.