Children and Young People’s (CYP) Cancer Services serve patients from birth to 24 years inclusive.
Children’s Cancer Services are used by children aged between 0 and 16.
Teenage and Young Adult’s (TYA) Cancer Services are used by teenagers and young people aged between 16 and their 25th birthday.
The NHS Long Term Plan (NHS England, 2019) included a number of important commitments for improving the outcomes and experience of children, teenagers and young adults with cancer.
The plan, which builds on the National Cancer Taskforce Report (2015) that preceded it, includes commitments to:
- Develop and implement networked care to improve outcomes for children and young people with cancer, simplifying pathways and transitions between services and ensuring every patient has access to specialist expertise.
- Begin to offer whole genome sequencing,
- Actively support children and young people to take part in clinical trials, so that participation in children remains high and in TYA increases to 50% by 2025.
- More effective consent processes for using data and tissue samples in research
- Seek the views of patients aged under 16
- Offer all boys aged 12 and 13 vaccination against HPV-related diseases from September 2019,
- Increased funding for children’s palliative care services
Specialist cancer services for children and young people provide a range of networked services directly commissioned by NHS England, including:
- All cancer chemotherapy (including delivery) and radiotherapy;
- Specialist palliative care services;
- Survivorship;
- Long-term follow up; and
- Specialist therapies and rehabilitation.
New service specifications for childhood cancer services were published in November 2021. These can be viewed here:
Wessex Cancer Alliance is working with clinical teams via the Network Coordinating Group, other partner organisations and patients/families to assess our local services in the light of the requirements and develop plans to make improvements where required.
When the updated specifications for teenagers and young adult services are published, we will share them here.
Links to:
NHS E Children and Young People’s Cancer Clinical Reference Group
Professional Organisations
Children Cancer and Leukaemia group
Teenagers and Young Adults with Cancer
Cancer Charities
CLIC Sargent and Teenage Cancer Trust supported the All Party Parliamentary Group on children, teenagers and young adults with cancer inquiry into patient experience. In 2018 a report, Listen Up! What matters to young cancer patients was published. You can click here to download it from the CLIC Sargent website.
