This week a new CT scanner was unveiled at West Cumberland Hospital. 

Charity fundraiser 'Marathon Man' Gary McKee came along to say a few words and present the new piece of equipment. 

The CT scanner will provide vital assistance to health workers looking to detect serious illnesses in patients. 

Prior to this opening patients with have had to travel as far as Carlisle, something that would be very difficult, especially for those living south of Whitehaven. 

Now West Cumbrian residents have a state-of-the-art piece of medical equipment on their doorstep with hopes that it will be able to detect illnesses before they become more severe. 

Mr McKee said: "It's an honour to be here today to open this new machine. 

"It will cut traveling distance down for people in West Cumbria as opposed to going to Carlisle. 

"A lot of cancer patients have told me that one of the worst parts of going for the treatment is the traveling itself, so I know it will help a lot of people."

Maxine Mitchell, the chief clinical technologist for the service at West Cumberland Hospital, said: "What we've just purchased is called SPECT CT so it does two things, it does nuclear medicine studies, but it also means that straight afterward you can do a CT scan which means you can end up with what are called fused images. 

"You can have your nuclear medicine functional study and superimpose your CT which gives you anatomy on top of that. 

"So, it is a much more diagnostically useful thing than what we'd have had before.

"They've had SPEC CT at the Carlisle site for a number of years, and we just had nuclear medicine here at West Cumberland Hospital, so it's new to this site. 

"It means that a lot of the work where historically people would have had to go to Carlisle, they are now able to get them done locally to their home addresses. 

"We've been recruiting so we've got some new staff, but I think new technology is really great, so we're all really looking forward to getting our hands on it."