Dame Caroline Dinenage, Member of Parliament for Gosport, has welcomed a letter from Health Secretary, Steve Barclay, charting progress on improving childhood cancer services.
Caroline has been working closely with her constituent, Charlotte Fairall from Stubbington, to campaign for a Childhood Cancer Mission following the tragic passing of Charlotte’s daughter, Sophie, at the age of 10 years old from Rhabdomyosarcoma. Charlotte has since founded the charity Sophie’s Legacy to campaign for the Mission.
Caroline and Charlotte met with Health Secretary, Steve Barclay, earlier this year to put forward their Childhood Cancer Mission which includes five points that they would like to see the government act on:
1. Timely diagnosis: national signs and symptoms campaign, referral pathway, standardised education materials for health & care professionals.
2. Pioneering research: identification of new treatment, funded research of screening and surveillance and a systematic review of research priorities.
3. Excellent patient experience: availability of quality food, play specialists 7 days a week and an under 16 patient experience survey.
4. World-class treatment: access to new and less toxic treatment, timely genomic testing, offer of HPV vaccine to all children, age-appropriate care.
5. 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 a letter from the Secretary of State for Health & Social Care, Steve Barclay, he outlined some of the positive steps that the government is taking to progress this forward.
In the letter, the Health Secretary said:
“We will be surveying every NHS Trust in the country to assess the provision of play areas for younger patients. This will build on work already carried out to survey all of the specialist children’s cancer centres in the NHS in England. From this, we will develop an action plan to bring all NHS Trusts up to the standards of the best in terms of both staff and to facilities.
“We are working to make sure that suspected childhood cancers receive a rapid referral from the GP. This could be made possible not only via improved automatic systems in GPs’ software, but also through giving GPs the option to refer young patients directly to diagnostic services. We are changing the service specifications for GPs to reflect this in the coming weeks.
“On funding for childhood cancer, I have raised this with our Chief Scientific Adviser who oversees cancer, including the Cancer Life Sciences Mission. The National Institute for Health Research welcomes funding applications for research into childhood cancer, and a number of relevant research calls are currently open, giving researchers the opportunity to bid for funding in this important area.
“I recognise that this is a critical area for our forthcoming Major Conditions Strategy, and I have asked my officials to ensure that childhood cancers are specifically included within that.”
Welcoming the update, Caroline said:
“Thank you to Health Secretary Steve Barclay for providing this update. It’s very welcome to see that the government is taking our Childhood Cancer Mission seriously, and that action is being taken on this.
“It’s been just over a year since I held a debate on this - the first ever in the main chamber of the House of Commons. I’m so pleased that progress is being made.
“Of course, this is just the beginning. I look forward to following this closely and ensuring that more is done to fulfil our mission.”
ENDS
