Over the summer 2024, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care was asked to ‘call in’ our decision on where the future Principal Treatment Centre for children with cancer living in south London and much of south east England will be. ‘Calling in’ a decision means the Secretary of State decides to take a close look at a planned change to NHS services and whether to proceed with the proposal, modify it, or take other action.

The Secretary of State has now told us that, having looked carefully at all the information provided and considered it against the criteria for call-in, he has decided not to call in the decision taken by the leaders of NHS England (London and South East regions) in March 2024.

This means that very specialist cancer services for children living in south London and much of south east England will transfer to Evelina London Children’s Hospital, with radiotherapy at University College Hospital, as planned. The move is not expected to happen before October 2026 and there will be no sudden changes to children’s cancer care in the meantime.

We welcome this news. Planning and preparations for the safe transfer of services are making good progress and will continue.

Details of how children, families and staff are working with Evelina London to shape the plans for the future centre are available on the Evelina London website. We are grateful to everyone who is sharing their knowledge, experience and expertise in this way.

Throughout this process, we have remained focused on ensuring we provide the highest standards of children’s cancer care. The future Children’s Cancer Centre will build on the strengths of the current service, meet the nationally required service specification and be capable of delivering best quality care for children with cancer for decades to come.

Further information on planning for the future centre, is available here. NHS England — London » Very specialist children’s cancer services: progress update

Further information on the decision-making process, including the public consultation, is available here. https://www.transformationpartners.nhs.uk/childrenscancercentre/key-information/