This website uses cookies

We use essential cookies to make this website work. Additional cookies help us to make improvements (analytics) or are set when we incorporate functionality from other websites, such as video, social media feeds and ReachDeck (text-to-speech and translations). More on how we use cookies

Set preferences

This site is best viewed with a modern browser. You appear to be using an old version of Internet Explorer.

New children’s chemotherapy service now available at the Horton

17/12/2019
This article is more than four years old.
A new chemotherapy service for children is now available at the Horton General Hospital.

The service's first clinic launched in September and provides chemotherapy to young people between the ages of one and 19.  The clinic operates as a satellite site to Kamran’s Ward at the Children’s Hospital in Oxford, and means that patients and their families in the north of the county can receive treatment much closer to home.  

The clinic, which is currently focusing on treating acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, runs once a month and provides intravenous chemotherapy for patients who would otherwise need to travel to Oxford to receive their treatment.  

The clinic is the result of collaborative working between paediatric staff across the Trust, and staff from the Brodey Centre – the specialist cancer care centre based at the Horton.

Dr Tania Davison, Specialty Doctor in Children’s Services, said: "This is a really great addition to children’s services at the Horton.  We originally had staff who could provide supportive care such as medication reviews and blood tests, but having a designated clinic to administer chemotherapy at the hospital is a fantastic expansion.  We’re so grateful to our paediatric and Brodey Centre colleagues for their drive, support, and help in moving this forward.

"We’ve had great feedback from our families who are using the service – by being closer to home, it’s one less thing to worry about and makes receiving chemotherapy that little bit easier.

"We mainly treat children who are in their maintenance phase of treatment where they receive monthly doses of chemotherapy.  The clinic is running really well, and we’re looking to explore how we could expand the clinic in the future."

Ceri, a local mum whose son Stanley has been receiving treatment at the clinic, said: "This clinic has made life a lot easier for us when Stanley is receiving his chemotherapy at the Horton.

"It’s much closer to where we live, and it’s the little things that make the difference – I now have the time to go to my  daughter’s after-school sports groups and support her, because I don’t have to travel back from Oxford."

Professor Meghana Pandit, Chief Medical Officer at the Trust, said: "We welcome anything that makes things easier for families when their children are undergoing treatment for cancer.

"The fact that families in the north of the county can receive treatment nearer home at the Horton is another example of how we’re committed to providing more services at the hospital, and expanding and investing in the care given there."

In this section