[3] Initially situated off Oxford Road in Manchester, the centre moved to a purpose-built facility in Withington in 1932 and became part of the NHS in 1948.
[4] The Christie is the largest single site cancer centre in Europe, and during the 2023–24 period provided 102,000 fractions of radiotherapy and treated more than 60,000 patients.
[5] The hospital primarily covers a population of 3.2 million in Greater Manchester and Cheshire, but around a quarter of patients are referred from other areas of the UK for specialist treatment.
[2] On his death in 1887, Sir Joseph Whitworth bequeathed money that was used to purchase land in Rusholme, where in 1892 the Cancer Pavilion and Home was founded.
Richard Copley Christie, an eminent friend of Whitworth's, served as chairman of the committee overseeing the founding of the Cancer Pavilion.
[16] In 1901, the Christie Management Committee agreed to the request of Dr Robert Biggs Wild to spend £50 on equipment necessary to test the efficacy of X-ray treatment, after promising results were reported from London, and from patients treated by Professor Arthur Schuster at nearby Owens College.
[17] By 1914, leading local doctor Sir William Milligan had begun a campaign in the Manchester Guardian to raise funds for radium treatment.
In 1921, it moved to new premises in Nelson Street donated by Sir Edward and Lady Holt, and became the Manchester and District Radium Institute.
[21] Ralston Paterson was appointed as Director of the Radium Institute in 1931, and proceeded to build a world-recognised centre for the treatment of cancer by radiation in the following decades.
[19] Among his team was wife Edith Paterson, who started research work at the Christie in 1938 (initially unpaid) and who became an expert in radiation biology in her own right.
[30] In 2013 Chief Executive Caroline Shaw CBE was suspended while investigations by NHS Protect were conducted due to allegations that she had made an improper claim for the payment of expenses for a retreat in Ibiza organised by the Young Presidents' Organization, of which she was a member.
[43] On 26 April 2017 a fire broke out on the institute's roof and rapidly spread through the building, destroying cancer research facilities and leading to the displacement of more than 300 scientists and support staff.
[49] A report by Monitor (NHS) and the CQC concluded there was no evidence of serious failings of governance or widespread cultural issues at the trust.
[50] NHS England commissioned a review in 2020 into events at the trust after whistleblowers raised numerous concerns over a research project with pharmaceutical giant Roche.
She went on to say "The leadership of The Christie had a number of opportunities to avert this rapid review as colleagues in the R&I division began to speak up about their concerns.
[53] In 2018 the trust entered into a partnership arrangement with Hoffmann-La Roche which was intended to involve The Christie providing blood samples from 5,000 patients per year, with the company's subsidiaries, Flatiron Health and Foundation Medicine, building a "clinico-genomic database".
Reports into the project found that there was "insufficient due diligence on alternative options" and no formal procurement process.
Staff concerns raised at the time were brushed aside as was legal advice that it was "not as clear as we might hope that any research…[carried] out will be for the benefit of the trust at all".