The inaugural VHEE17 workshop was held at the Cockcroft Institute (at Daresbury Laboratory, UK) on 24th to the 26th of July in 2017. More than fifty delegates attended, with 38 from the UK, 7 from Europe, 3 Asia and 2 from the USA. This workshop explored fundamental issues associated with the development of a radiotherapy machine capable of delivering 250 MeV electrons at a high dose. Both the dose delivery aspects and the potential to realise a radiotherapy machine suitable for patient treatment were explored. In the former, Monte Carlo modelling of the dose distribution featured and entailed contrasting with extant therapy techniques – potential benefits and disadvantages. The accelerator physics part of the workshop addressed the practicalities of realising a medical radiotherapy machine equipped with multiple linacs surrounding the patient on a fixed gantry system. High gradient linac development featured, along with the application, with suitable modification, of X-band linacs already developed for linear colliders – the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) and the Next Linear Collider/Japanese Linear Collider (NLC/JLC) were discussed by delegates.
