Doctors and parents fight to keep children’s cancer ward at same hospital

By Charlotte Lillywhite, Local Democracy Reporter

Doctors and parents have thrown their support behind a hospital’s fight to keep children’s cancer services, rather than see them moved into Central London.

NHS England is proposing to move the children’s cancer centre based jointly at St George’s Hospital in Tooting and The Royal Marsden in Sutton to one location – either moving the entire site to St George’s or  transferring it all to Evelina London Children’s Hospital in Lambeth.

Senior doctors at St George’s believe the hospital in Tooting is best placed for the future location of the centre as it has already built expertise, trust and relationships over 25 years of running it with The Royal Marsden. It also has shared care and paediatric intensive care units which look after children with cancer.

Dr Sijo Francis, consultant neonatologist and divisional chair, said: “That wider team isn’t just doctors and nurses – it’s the therapists, psychologists, play specialists, radiologists. There’s a whole host of people who touch the patient throughout their journey and it’s that set-up, that seamlessness of it, it just works because it’s now a well-oiled machine that just knows what to do.

“That is not something that you can just take and move somewhere else.”

The NHS has been consulting on the two options for the centre, which provides specialist children’s cancer services to those aged 15 and under living in South London, Kent, most of Surrey, Brighton and Hove, Medway and East Sussex. The consultation closes on December 18.

In consultation documents, the NHS said it preferred Evelina’s proposal as it scored higher than St George’s in an independent evaluation – at 80.5per cent compared to 75.3. But it added it is “open-minded about both options”.

Sutton-based mum Samantha Hall praised the treatment her son Jackson received at St George’s after he was diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, aged two, in 2020. He rang the end of treatment bell in April this year.

Ms Hall raised concerns about the prospect of travelling via public transport to get to Evelina as it is closer to Central London.

“I never did, throughout the whole of treatment, take him on the Underground or buses,” she said. “There’s no way for our treatment I’d want to take him on [public] transport.”

Her partner Shaun Hall, Jackson’s dad, said public transport posed an “infection risk” and many patients would face longer journey times if they drove to Evelina.

He added the family can “vouch” for St George’s where they have “a network, we’ve got a protocol in place and it definitely takes a bit of weight off us parents knowing that we’ve got that there”.

Evelina said it believes it is “best placed to take on a service for children and families that will provide them with the best possible care”.

Jo Adamou, patient representative at Evelina, said: “My daughter has been a patient at Evelina London since she was born. When she was diagnosed with a complex form of cancer, she was cared for by the teams at both Evelina London and the Royal Marsden.

“Of course it was a very scary time but the teams worked so well together and she had such excellent care at both hospitals – happily she is doing well today and we are just so grateful to all the NHS teams who have cared for her. So I would have no hesitation in endorsing Evelina London as the best location for the new principal treatment centre.”

Pictured top: From left, Samantha, Jackson and Shaun Hall at St George’s Hospital in Tooting (Picture: Charlotte Lillywhite)