CHILDREN’S CANCER SERVICES IN SOUTH LONDON AND THE SOUTHERN COUNTIES (No. 2)

That this House welcomes the appointment of Professor Sir Mike Richards CBE to review Children’s Cancer Services in South London and the southern counties following reports in the Health Service Journal of service failures caused by the lack of paediatric intensive care facilities at the Royal Marsden Hospital NHS Trust; understands that the report prepared by Professor Mike Stevens and other clinicians in 2015 on these services recommended co-location of a paediatric intensive care unit with the services and is deeply worried at the lack of progress on this matter over the last ten years; regrets the actions of NHS England in failing to publish this report until the last few days; draws the attention of the House to the numerous cases of poorly young children being taken in ambulances when in extreme pain from hospital to hospital because of the failure to provide sensible arrangements for a paediatric intensive care unit; and expresses the hope that the Richards report will in due course put the interests of young patients and their families foremost in the redesign of the service.