Sheffield Child Cancer Team First to be Praised for Service


Friday November 4


A SPECIALIST children’s cancer team in Sheffield were the first in the country to be reviewed by peers on their service.

A National Cancer Peer Review team visited Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust for two days following three years of work by staff and £400,000 of investment.

The review looked into the services and care provided for cancer patients and their families and found the Trust to be at a high standard.

Jeanette Payne, consultant haematologist and team leader, said: “We were the first in the country to be assessed in this peer review of children's cancer services. We are delighted to have done well with our peers having been very complimentary about the care we’re providing for patients. 

“We have actions to work on in the coming years but are very happy to have what is considered to be an excellent service for our children.”

The department sees 60-70 new cancer referrals each year as well as providing treatment and follow-up for many others. 

Many of the patients will be long term and receive chemotherapy on the wards at the hospital or visit Western Park where radiotherapy treatment is carried out.

Three years ago the Government published standards for children’s paediatric oncology services with 200 measures against which they would be marked.

The specialist centres needed to meet a set of standards to improve their departments and work towards becoming reviewed by their peers. Sheffield received £400,000 and spent the fund on supporting services such as psychology, dietetics and home nursing as well as developing outreach services to reduce the amount of travelling for patients outside Sheffield.

The visit from a group of 12 peer assessors from the NCPR was the culmination in June where they looked at diagnostics and treatment, late effects and core services.

The report, recently published, said the team work and leadership was strong and said they were ‘a hard working, enthusiastic team providing excellent care for their patients’.

The areas where they were asked to improve were mostly paperwork based including the recording of workload and duties. 

Dr Payne added: “It was a useful experience to be assessed by other people from our profession in this way and it has encouraged us to work harder on our recording methods regarding best practice and workload. 

“But the most important factor for us is patient care and our level of clinical skills. This was judged to be very high so we’re extremely pleased. We’ll take this good work forward and continue to strive to provide our patients with the best possible service.”