Former Tenby Greenhill School student - Craig Maxwell's £1.7m fundraising has helped aid the roll-out of 'QuicDNA' tests for quicker cancer diagnosis in Wales.

QuicDNA is a genomics research project to reduce diagnosis time for lung cancer patients to a maximum of 26 days.

With extra funding - the roll-out for blood test checks is now being accelerated and expanded for people with other cancer types such as colorectal, prostate and cancers which have spread from an uncertain origin.

Further follow-up tests are also being offered to people with lung cancer to determine how well their treatments might be working.

Shortly before Craig’s 40th birthday, doctors found a tumour in his lung - but struggled to get a sample. It took almost three months for him, to find out he had inoperable stage 4 non-smoking lung and bone cancer.

"Those 78 days were the darkest and hardest times me, my family and my closest friends have experienced because you just don't know what your future is going to hold," said Craig, a former commercial director of rugby for the Welsh Rugby Union, who now resides in Penarth.

"You're not on treatment and just waiting while you are getting ill more quickly.

"Not being able to support my children through that process was completely unacceptable - and something I wanted to change to help other families,” he said in an interview with BBC Wales news.

In the face of his terminal diagnosis, Craig began a huge fundraising quest in the hopes of improving others’ diagnostic journeys and providing them with the chance of a better outlook than his own.

He has gone onto raise a staggering £1.7million to support the QuicDNA research and other initiatives, through the Maxwell Family Genomics Fund [a fund as part of Velindre Cancer Centre].

His challenges include cycling from Cardiff to Paris, and being joined by a host of well-known Welsh faces to complete the Wales Coastal Path Challenge in just 26 days - covering 780 miles to represent the 78 days it took him to receive his diagnosis from the point of finding his tumour.

Last May he and a team of three others rowed over 17 nautical miles a day from Tenby to Cardiff over six days while in the middle of his intense chemotherapy treatment - to get to the Principality Stadium in time to present the match ball for the 30th Investec Champions Cup Final.

"I was able to climb mount Toubkal [in Morocco], all 4,200 metres, I was able to walk the coastal path of Wales within 26 days,” Craig continued.

"I was able to take my daughter to the Dance World Cup in Ireland and was able to coach my son's rugby team.

"So having that precision medicine and understanding of my tumour has been an absolute game-changer for patients like me.

"But I'm a very small part of an amazing team,” he added.

You can donate to the Maxwell Family Genomics Fund at: https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/the-maxwell-family-fund