Dame Caroline Dinenage and her constituent, Charlotte Fairall, have met with the Secretary of State for Health & Social Care, Steve Barclay, to push for their Childhood Cancer Mission.
The meeting comes after tireless campaigning by both Charlotte and Caroline to see improved child cancer services.
Charlotte’s daughter, Sophie, tragically passed away from Rhabdomyosarcoma in September 2021, at the age of 10. Since then, Charlotte, from Stubbington, has been working alongside Caroline to campaign for a Childhood Cancer Mission, which includes things Sophie would have liked to see during her treatment. Cancer is the biggest cause of death for children under the age of 14 and there are frequently cases of diagnosis coming too late.
The Childhood Cancer Mission has five points that Caroline and Charlotte would like to see taken up by the governments:
- Timely diagnosis: national signs and symptoms campaign, referral pathway, standardised education materials for health & care professionals.
- Pioneering research: identification of new treatment, funded research of screening and surveillance and a systematic review of research priorities.
- Excellent patient experience: availability of quality food, play specialists 7 days a week and an under 16 patient experience survey.
- World-class treatment: access to new and less toxic treatment, timely genomic testing, offer of HPV vaccine to all children, age appropriate care.
- Quality survivorship: evidence based mental health interventions, mental health support to immediate family, long-term psychosocial support for survivors, single point of access follow up care.
In March 2022, Caroline held a debate on Childhood Cancer Outcomes on the floor of the House of Commons, which was very popular and oversubscribed. Since then, work has been ongoing to push for much better progress on how we detect, treat and care for children with cancer.
After the meeting, Caroline said:
“We were delighted to meet with Secretary of State for Health & Social Care today and discuss our Childhood Cancer Mission.
Charlotte and I were so impressed with his positive reaction to the clear package of measures we are suggesting.
He instructed his officials to carry out a pro-active and practical set of follow up actions. We really feel that we are making progress.”
Commenting, Charlotte said:
“I’m really pleased with how today went. I felt the Secretary of State listened and has put in a solid plan of action, with lots of work to get on with.
It is good to be finally making some progress. Thank you very much to Caroline for arranging this and for her commitment to Sophie’s wishes.”
