Children’s Cancer Care: South-East

Debate between Elliot Colburn and Stephen Hammond

Wednesday 13th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on securing this debate. As a constituency MP and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on cancer, I am particularly pleased to take part in today’s debate, and I absolutely agree with what has been said so far. Like the hon. Members for Twickenham and for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) and I have also written to the Secretary of State requesting that this decision be called in.

I do not want to repeat much of what has already been said, as many other hon. Members wish to speak, but I want to emphasise a few points, particularly the fact that paediatric cancer is incredibly rare and that treating it is a highly specialised service that the NHS provides. I understand that the NHS is concerned about co-locating the deliverables of that care on one site, but as has already been pointed out, and as St George’s keeps saying, that hospital is standing ready to be able to do that. St George’s is investing a lot into its campus, as is the University of London. St George’s stands ready to provide what parents are asking for, and it has 25 years of specialist experience, alongside the Royal Marsden, to do so. Therefore, it would be a mistake to take the decision to move the children’s cancer service to the Evelina.

Like the hon. Member for Twickenham, I am confident that the Evelina is a fantastic hospital with amazing staff and that it does amazing work, but this is about clinical deliverables.

[Stephen Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right: the Evelina is a great hospital. The other point about St George’s is that it not only has a specialism in paediatric cancer; it also has a wider specialism in neonatal and paediatric services. There is a concern that those would be lost if the co-location was based at the Evelina.

[Elliot Colburn]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is a key concern, which is precisely why we want to avoid that happening.

It is also worth stating that St George’s does not just have 25 years of experience. The data really does speak for itself. It has been rated outstanding by the Care Quality Commission for delivering cancer services for children. St George’s proposal is to consolidate the primary treatment centre on to the St George’s site in a new state-of-the-art children’s cancer wing, delivering outstanding facilities to match the outstanding care already provided. The services that matter most for children with cancer are already available at St George’s. For some 80% of children with cancer, St George’s campus can already provide or is poised to provide key treatments that the Evelina will have to take time to develop.

Through its experience and expertise, St George’s can already deliver what parents say they want. The hospital is reliant on that experience and incredibly rare expertise. Only about 20 paediatric oncology surgeons with that uncommon skill are registered in the UK, and three of them are already at St George’s. Parents have consistently said they would prefer the children’s cancer centre to be outside the city centre, with better parking provision; again, that is something that St George’s is already able to provide. We do not need to wax lyrical about how awful the traffic is in central London—we say that every day anyway as we try to get into work.

Consolidating the children’s cancer services at St George’s will be easier and less costly for the NHS to deliver. A large part of the service is already there and the existing non-clinical space can, at relative speed, be transformed into a new state-of-the-art cancer centre. But beyond the financial impact of the individual institution we are talking about, there will be wider costs to the NHS as a whole if it is relocated. St George’s has estimated those costs to be around £2.5 million in the first year alone if the service is moved. That could have an impact on other children’s services, and indeed wider services, that are at St George’s at the moment.

Children’s cancer is distressing, but it is also, from a clinical perspective, not neat or stand-alone and addressing it requires incredible skill. The expert staff supporting these children could end up leaving St George’s Hospital and that would weaken the multidisciplinary teams who are there.

Now, with the increasing investment in the campus—with City, University of London, and St George’s, University of London, having agreed to merge and develop ambitious plans for the campus—the opportunities are stronger still. That is not to mention the expansion of the Institute of Cancer Research in the London Borough of Sutton, which we are so excited to see, and the development of a new acute facility. We have the ability to turn south-west London into a world-leading hub for cancer services, beating the United States in a sense. This is incredible news; we need to be grasping this opportunity, so taking the service away would be a huge mistake.

Given all this, I fail to see a compelling reason why the Evelina would provide better care for children in my constituency of Carshalton and Wallington and further afield. Accordingly, I request that the Secretary of State consider using her call-in powers to review the decision on a reconfiguration if that is the decision taken tomorrow.