Mayor of London weighs in on decision to move children’s cancer care from Wandsworth to central London

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has written to NHS regional directors outlining the results of a review into the decision to move specialist children’s cancer services away from St George’s Hospital in Tooting.

The review highlights significant areas of concern which formed the initial basis of Wandsworth’s pan-London campaign against the proposal.

The review highlights the need for patient and family representatives to be included in the Travel and Access Group, so that the needs and experiences of families are better understood and directly inform any future decision-making.

This has been a key focus of the Wandsworth-led campaign, which has consistently pointed towards families’ concerns around travel to the proposed new site in central London (Evelina Hospital, located across the river from the Palace of Westminster). Families of children with cancer prefer to travel to hospital by car rather than by public transport, especially if they are on immunosuppressant treatments, and local families are worried about needing to drive into central London.

The review also points towards the additional £13million required to move specialist care from St George’s Hospital to the Evelina. The Mayor’s letter states that “given that the chosen option is costlier, I am concerned that an opportunity may have been missed to generate value for money by considering other uses of this differential investment.”

The Wandsworth-led campaign has repeatedly pointed out that moving children’s cancer services out of Wandsworth puts other local health services at risk too. The Mayor of London agrees that these services may be “under threat” and that “it would raise significant questions around the wider impact of the changes on local populations and health inequalities.” The Mayor’s review points out that NHS England should explicitly confirm that “it does not view paediatric elective surgery and pathology services as fundamentally at risk on the St George’s site” echoing the concerns Wandsworth has raised.

 Wandsworth Council has submitted a formal referral to the Secretary of State for Health to call-in and review the decision to move services away from St George’s Hospital, which has 25 years of experience of treating children with cancer. This work was coordinated alongside Richmond, Kingston, Merton, Sutton, Croydon and Surrey councils. Rosena Allin-Khan, MP for Tooting, wrote to the Health Secretary on 7th August also asking for a review of the decision. Our cross-party campaign across south London and southern England local authorities represents 2.7 million residents.