Corrie's Sally Dynevor opens breast cancer clinic

A new breast screening centre will open in Greater Manchester thanks, in part, to a Coronation Street star's charity trek.

The National Breast Imaging Academy is set to open at Wythenshawe Hospital, in Manchester, after a four-year fundraising campaign supported by Sally Dynevor, 62, who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise funds.

The clinic - which will train specialists and provide screening services - opened its doors earlier for a first tour of the facilities, led by Dynevor, who has survived breast cancer herself and is a patron of Prevent Breast Cancer.

"It's been a long journey but we've done it," Dynevor told BBC Radio Manchester. "I'm so proud to be a part of the charity."

The National Breast Imaging Academy has been built through a joint fundraising effort by The Manchester Foundation Trust Charity and Prevent Breast Cancer charity.

Dynevor said it was an "exciting" moment to be going into the finished academy for the first time - after the actress raised funds towards the construction of the facility as part of her Kilimanjaro climb for Prevent Breast Cancer.

Dynevor was diagnosed with cancer when she was 46 - with her on-screen character fighting the disease at the same time

The actor has said that she only checked herself for a lump after working on the soap storyline in 2009 - adding that when she received her diagnosis she thought her doctor had mixed her up with her on-screen character.

Following her recovery, Dynevor fronted a campaign by Prevent Breast Cancer, focused on improving resources and training the next generation of medical staff to work in breast cancer screening.

As a long-term patron of the charity, the actress previously climbed to Everest Base Camp for the charity in 2019 - before taking on the Kilimanjaro climb last September.

According to Prevent Breast Cancer, the clinic will train up to 50 new specialists every year, and provide as many as 13,000 additional breast screening appointments annually.

The academy houses the first contrast mammography machine in the North-West, using new technology to improve breast cancer diagnosis in younger patients with dense breasts.

"It's a very exciting day," Dynevor said, ahead of her first look at the facility. "This has been years in the making and we're just so proud to have this wonderful, wonderful building in Manchester.

"It will help the whole country, training specialists who will go on and work all over."

She thanked everyone who had helped raise money for the construction of the centre.

"This centre is just so, so important," she said. "All the people that have been fundraising, they're just very, very special."

She added: "It's thanks to them that we are finally opening the doors."

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