Mount Vernon Cancer Centre (MVCC) is a well-recognised specialist cancer centre, providing regional non-surgical specialist care for adult patients across Hertfordshire and parts of north London, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and East Berkshire.

MVCC employs an extensive, expert, multi-disciplinary workforce with a highly regarded reputation. The main services the centre provides are radiotherapy, including brachytherapy, and systemic anti-cancer therapies (SACT), including chemotherapy and immunotherapy.

However, its future has been of growing concern due to the lack of the appropriate clinical support services (for example, A&E and critical care), and the quality of the buildings.

NHS England is working with the staff at Mount Vernon Cancer Centre, with patients and local people, with other local hospitals and commissioners, and with local cancer alliances to look at how we can best meet the needs of local people, and develop options that will build on the services, research and patient experience the centre already delivers.

We have developed proposals to relocate MVCC to a new, purpose-built cancer centre at Watford General Hospital with some additional services in other local hospitals, to reduce the need for people to travel to the cancer centre and shorten some journey times. The new centre would be run by University College London Hospital which is a specialist cancer provider. This would:

• Ensure access to essential medical services on the same site as the cancer centre, in order that the full range of specialist services can be safely offered to patients.
• Provide modern, high-quality facilities for treatment and research, expanding research and innovation and offering more people access to the latest treatments and clinical trials.
• Expand care closer to home to improve access for patients, reducing unnecessary travel and improving patient experience

These proposals build on an independent clinical review which concluded that the services were not sustainable in their current form.

We are currently exploring closer alignment of the MVCC proposals with the Watford General Hospital redevelopment which is part of the Government’s new hospitals programme, and looking at the financing options which might unlock the funding needed to build the new cancer centre.

You can read the Independent Clinical Panel Report (July 2019) and find out more about the work being done to ensure patients continue to have access to specialist cancer care in the future, and how to get involved by visiting the review website: https://mvccreview.nhs.uk/