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Children’s cancer services in south London – your views

The NHS in England has been working with children’s cancer specialists – including here at St George’s – as well as patients, cancer charities and the public to set standards for the way services for children with cancer should be organised.

All children and young people diagnosed with cancer start their diagnosis and treatment in one of a small number of specialist hospital centres across the UK. These are known as Principal Treatment Centres.

NHS England is the organisation responsible for setting these standards. In January 2020, the Board of NHS England considered the recommendations of a review by Professor Sir Mike Richards. The Board had asked Professor Richards to assist them in the evaluation of responses to a consultation on new draft standards for children’s cancer services.

Professor Richards concluded that “from now on all principal treatment centres must be co-located with a paediatric intensive care unit and other specialised children’s services”. No single hospital in South London, Kent, Surrey or Sussex currently has both a principal treatment centre for children’s cancer and a paediatric intensive care unit on the same hospital site, and this is now required for all children who are at higher risk of needing intensive care.

The current principal treatment centre arrangements for South London, Kent, Surrey and Sussex provides the principal treatment centre across two sites, the Royal Marsden in Sutton and St George’s Hospital in Tooting. Paediatric intensive care is only available on the St George’s Hospital Site.

Sharing your views

NHS England is currently looking at how to meet the new requirements for the children’s cancer principal treatment centre for South London, Kent, Surrey and Sussex in the future.

NHS London wants to hear from children, young people, families, charities, and clinicians to help think about the way forward. NHS London has organised a survey to gain the views of children, young people, parents and carers on what is important to them in receiving cancer care. This will assist NHS London in assessing the different options for delivering the new national requirements for children’s cancer services.

NHS London have obtained the services of the Association for Young People’s Health to run the survey in an independent way and also to offer young people the opportunity to be interviewed instead of completing the survey – if you know young people who would be interested they can contact the Association for Young People’s Health via jeremy@youngpeopleshealth.org.uk or call 07969 214275. Details of the survey and links to them are set out below.

Survey for young people

This is a survey for young people (age 10 – 25) who are current or former cancer patients from South London and the South East of England. You can find out all about the survey and what it’s about by clicking on the survey link here. The survey is open until 20 February 2021 and there is a separate survey for parents and carers (see below).

Survey for parents and carers

This is a survey for parents and carers of children and young people who have had cancer care in South London and the South East of England. You can find out all about the survey and what it’s about by clicking on the survey link here. The survey is open until 20 February 2021