Around 2,500 residents in the Brent battle cancer each year. Thanks to advances in treatment, more people now survive the deadly disease than ever before.
It is critical we have access to the latest treatments and research trials, and I have been very interested to learn about changes being considered for the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre. If you have been, you may have been treated by a highly skilled, caring team, but you will also know that the buildings are in a bad way.
It’s not only the buildings that are a problem. The cancer centre does not have intensive care, or access to other specialities to support staff care for patients with increasingly complex needs and often multiple illnesses. Some treatments and research trials cannot be carried out at Mount Vernon, and in future this could worsen.
An independent clinical report recommended cancer services need to move to a main hospital site, and I have been having discussions with the team leading the review to help ensure that Brent patients and residents are involved from an early stage.
The team has been looking at travel times and talked to patients from as far as Bedford, Luton, Stevenage, Aylesbury and Slough.
It looks like the Watford Hospital site may be the best location for a new specialist cancer centre for this big area. They intend that the new Mount Vernon Cancer Centre would be managed by cancer specialists at UCLH. This combination of specialist management and a new cancer centre next to a general hospital would enable the team to undertake more specialist treatment and research, and to improve local access to care for all patients.
People have been talking about changes needed to Mount Vernon for over 40 years, this is an opportunity to influence specialist cancer services for the next 40! There will be meetings for Brent residents in the new year. Keep up to date at mvccreview.nhs.uk.

  • Cllr Ketan Sheth is chairman of Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee, Brent Council