AN innovative Winsford student has helped to revolutionise cancer care at Leighton Hospital by creating part of a computer programme to help sufferers.
Whizz-kid Peter Oakes, aged 19, of Chester Road, has designed the 'front end' of a data base which will be used to monitor the effectiveness of the treatment cancer patients receive at the Crewe hospital.
His job was to make the system more user-friendly and this has taken nearly two years to complete.
Dr Peter Lewis, the consultant anaesthetist at Leighton, has been responsible for organising the project to help South Cheshire College students gain experience of real life uses for information technology.
He said: "Peter's involvement was to create a data base design which searches records in an entirely unique manner, allowing very quick, user-friendly instructions.
"But the high quality product we ended up with is capable of being used not only as an information system, but as an auditing tool and a research base as well.
"The project is a testimony to what can be achieved between a major employer, such as the National Health Service, and an education and training establishment, like South Cheshire College, which is then of benefit to everybody."
The computer data base can not only be used as a means of collating patient information, it can also be used as a research tool to help surgeons and consultants treat bowel cancer patients more effectively.
It has already been presented to the country's chief medical officer and will be presented to the British Medical Association in June as a professional package that can be modified for all types of cancer patient for possible use on a national basis.
Dr Lewis added: "Peter dedicated himself to this project, putting a great deal of free time and energy into making it work.
"Of course, credit must also go to all the other students and members of staff, both at South Cheshire College and Leighton Hospital, who worked on the project.
"But Peter's efforts have meant that surgeons can find answers to questions that they really need to know quickly and easily."
Peter, who is severely deaf, has also been awarded a special prize by South Cheshire College in recognition of his unique computer skills.
The former Middlewich High School pupil earned the accolade of Student of the Year for 1996 to 1997. He has now taken the practical experience he gained at the hospital a step further by taking up a place at Staffordshire University to study computing.
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