THE Tavistock surgeon who led the fight for a specialist breast care unit at Derriford Hospital has been presented with a prestigious NHS award.

Colin Teasdale retired just a few months before the first comprehensive breast care centre offering specialist treatmen, opened at the Plymouth hospital.

Mr Teasdale's pioneering efforts to see the Primrose Breast Care Unit built were recognised when he was presented with one of only five awards given out by the all-party Parliamentary Group on Breast Cancer.

Last week, he received the prestigious award from Plymouth MP and all-party group member Linda Gilroy at the centre.

Mr Teasdale said: 'I was very pleased, it was quite an honour. It was unexpected and it was particularly good to have the award presented at the breast centre at Derriford, with all the people I have worked with down the years.

'The award was presented to me because I was a leader, but we very much had a team in which everyone worked very hard.'

The awards are given by the group of MPs to honour outstanding contributions by NHS staff in the fight against breast cancer.

Consultant breast surgeon Mr Teasdale launched the Primrose Foundation charity in 1994 to raise the funds needed to built a specialist breast care unit.

The subsequent Primrose Appeal raised £500,000 by 2000 and the NHS supplied the remaining £1-million needed to build the centre and a ward for 14 patients. It was opened on level seven of Derriford Hospital in April 2001.

'It took us a long time to achieve it, from its inception it took about six years to build the centre,' he said.

Mr Teasdale said the centre had been set up because he and fellow Derriford breast surgeons wanted to apply the same specialised knowledge and standards for women with symptoms as existed under the breast screening programme.

Since his retirement in October 2000 because of ill health, Mr Teasdale has continued to play an important role in the centre's management as a trustee for the Primrose Foundation.

He said it was clear to him the centre was working very well.

'It has made everything much more efficient and much more effective. It has a pleasant atmosphere and so it removes some of the anxieties for women visiting the centre,' he added.