Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust (GOSH) is seeking to create a national resource for children with rare and difficult-to-treat cancers, thereby improving outcomes for children through holistic, personalised and coordinated care, across the entire cancer journey.
The Trust's overarching purpose is to advance care for children and young people with complex health needs so they can reach their full potential. This can only be achieved by putting children and young people first, always.
The proposed Children’s Cancer Centre forms a key part of the Trust’s next phase of redevelopment work. It will help GOSH achieve the highest levels of clinical care, and provide it to the largest number of children, enabling GOSH to provide more and better care for seriously ill children.
GOSH has dramatically improved outcomes and survival rates for children and young people with cancer. Providing the Children’s Cancer Centre at GOSH will enable the expert teams to care for even more patients.
The new building will not only provide more capacity to treat children; it will also provide new and innovative technologies to support the Trust’s expert clinical staff caring for children with cancer. The plans also include a new pharmacy manufacturing facility with better and more space for making lifesaving chemotherapy drugs.
A cancer diagnosis has a significant impact on children and their families, and marks the beginning of an often long and difficult treatment journey. The daily routine is likely to change significantly, with frequent hospital visits or inpatient stays that can last from days to years. The time away from home can also mean time away from family, friends, school and hobbies, and coupled with the side-effects of treatment and the psychological impact of a diagnosis, can have a significant impact on a child’s confidence, happiness and self-esteem.
GOSH delivers the country’s widest range of specialist health services for children on one site, with a broad range of specialities required to treat children with cancer, from intensive care to bone marrow transplantation. However, the rapidly changing pace of cancer medicine has outstripped GOSH’s existing cancer facilities, limiting the hospital from making the best possible use of new technology and digital advances.
The new Children’s Cancer Centre will support every aspect of care for children and their families from diagnosis to remission and beyond, and present opportunities for more effective, kinder treatments and cures for children. What is learned and applied in the new Children's Cancer Centre will have an impact on children far beyond the hospital's walls; it will help children all over the world.
