Backbench Business - Childhood Cancer OutcomesBackbench Business

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:06 pm on 26 April 2022.

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Photo of Caroline Nokes Caroline Nokes Chair, Women and Equalities Committee, Chair, Women and Equalities Committee 4:06, 26 April 2022

With a all the moving stories, this is a difficult debate to listen to, but I congratulate my near neighbour, my hon. Friend Dame Caroline Dinenage, on securing it. Hampshire is a small community, so it can be no surprise that nurses who treated Sophie live in Romsey and Southampton North and that her family have friends who live in my constituency. I have heard from them about Sophie’s bucket list and what her mother Charlotte wants to secure for children suffering from cancer, and that very much echoes comments made to me by my constituent Jane O’Brien, who lost her son George to teenage cancer some years ago. The O’Brien family have dedicated their time to setting up George’s trust, to raising funds to bring the first ever teenage cancer unit to Southampton General Hospital and to raising funds for the world-leading immunology centre in Southampton. Of course, we have heard today that too little of that research and money goes to childhood cancers, which are not as rare as we would like to hope.

George’s family have made a really important point to me about when he was diagnosed. When he went to the doctor’s surgery on the Tuesday, nobody recognised how serious his symptoms were. He died on the Friday, a matter of days later, but they felt strongly that the support was not there for them as a family. They did know what George had died of. They were not given the same level of support and assistance that other bereaved families might have received in similar circumstances.