BOLTON is to get a £1 million brain and body scanner, turning an eight year dream into reality.

The MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imager) scanner at the Royal Bolton Hospital will radically reduce the 15 month wait Bolton patients have to endure before receiving treatment at hospitals throughout the North-west.

Today, doctors and nurses were celebrating after being given lottery funding for the scanner.

Clinical director of radiology, Dr Jonathan Tuck, said: "This is a good day for Bolton, both for the hospital and for the patients. This is a big step. It will reduce waiting lists and mean a better quality of care for our patients."

The Royal Bolton Hospital will be one of only seven in the country to get an MRI scanner, given by the New Opportunities Fund.

It has been recognised for years that Bolton patients have the worst access to MRI scanners in the region.

Many have been waiting more than 15 months. Suspected cancer patients face a four week wait for the scanner, which is 12 miles away at Salford's Hope Hospital. Bolton people are allocated the equivalent of half a day each week for a scan.

Health staff at the Bolton radiology department have been campaigning for longer than eight years.

The new scanner will be up and running next summer, probably in the Minerva Road radiology unit. It will mean more than 80 patients can be diagnosed a week.

A new unit has yet to be built and hospital managers still have to weigh up the financial implications of staffing and running the facility.

Dr Tuck carried out his own survey on MRI availability in the north west as a member of the Regional Radiology Committee.

He said: "I was not prepared for the results. Bolton came out as the most deprived and disadvantaged town in the North-west. The access to MRI was appalling.

"The report which highlighted this could have played a major part in securing us a scanner. But it is also down to the hard work of the consultants and the management who have been working very hard."

Hospital chiefs now expect to be flooded with job applications from radiologists.

In August, a mobile scanner unit was brought to the Royal Bolton Hospital operating for one day a week, seeing 25 patients and reducing the waiting list backlog to nine months.

An MRI scanner is different from a computed tomography (CT) scanner, providing more sophisticated technology to detect a range of conditions. It also does not produce harmful X-rays by using magnetic imaging.

Chief Executive of the Bolton Hospitals NHS Trust, Mr John Brunt, said: "Clinicians and managers at the trust have been trying for years to get the funds for an MRI scanner. It is wonderful that Bolton is to get one at last."

Bolton South East MP Dr Brian Iddon welcomed the news saying that he has been lobbying government health ministers for "some time" for an MR scanner for the town.

Dr Iddon said: "I think it is extremely good news for Bolton. It is a fantastic machine."

The Government recently changed the lottery rules allowing cash to be released to the NHS in Britain.