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A Whole New Way
Welcome to your newsletter from the Cambridge Children's Hospital project
Spring 2025
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Welcome to our Cambridge Children's Hospital newsletter!
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On a project of this scale and longevity, it would be easy to think there are quiet moments. Not so! The continual drumbeat of activity comes from the huge amount of work going on behind the scenes to make the East of England’s first specialist hospital a reality. From building up our Full Business Case and developing our new models of care, to fundraising towards our £100m target and the detailed process of finding a builder. All of these continue at a pace.
Our work to engage widely with regional clinical providers and underrepresented communities continues, as do our efforts to involve staff across our partner organisations in thinking ahead to their future way of working.
I hope you enjoy our Spring newsletter and, as always, thank you for your continued support for the Cambridge Children’s Hospital project.
Best wishes
Malcolm McFrederick, Project Director
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Malcolm with Sarah Allen and Sara O’Curry from the Cambridge Children’s team at the Children’s Hospital Alliance conference
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Project joins Children's Hospital Alliance in advocating for better healthcare
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The Children's Hospital Alliance team visiting the site for Cambridge Children's Hospital with members of the project team
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As members of the Children’s Hospital Alliance, we have the opportunity to collaborate with other organisations to advocate for children and push their healthcare agenda. We were invited to present at its first national conference. This was a great opportunity to talk about our unique vision in front of healthcare professionals and policymakers, with members of our youth and young adult forums putting their questions to the Minister for Public Health and Prevention Rt Hon Ashley Dalton MP. Soon after, the Children’s Hospital Alliance team visited us in Cambridge to find out more about the Cambridge Children’s project.
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Parent Carer Voice reviews family model
Consultant Clinical Psychologist Sara O’Curry and Consultant Family Therapist Rachel Watson presented the vision of Psychologically Informed Care to our Parent Carer Voice group earlier this year. Our members offered to review the report to ensure it truly reflects how parents and carers would like to be supported. This work will be carried out in the next few months.
Launch of Regional Clinical Advisory Board
We are delighted to bring together clinical leaders from physical and mental health, alongside parent and youth representatives from the East of England for our Regional Clinical Advisory Board. They will work to enable regional partners to influence the content and direction of the Full Business Case, ready for submission next year. They will also look to highlight key areas across the region where Cambridge Children’s Hospital can support the improvement of physical and mental health provision to maximise benefit for children, young people and their families.
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Youth and Young Adult Forum members get together
Young people from our youth and young adult forums met face to face for the first time this year – and everyone had a brilliant time! After some serious work rag rating how the Cambridge Children’s project team had responded to their previous feedback on subjects such as hospital school, the forum members enjoyed pizza together and an escape room game. This was an important opportunity to build relationships and think about future plans. We look forward to getting together again in the summer.
“It was so much fun and lovely to meet people in person who I’ve spoken to online for the past 8 or 9 months. It’s so easy to bond with someone over shared experiences and our shared passion to work on this project all together.” – Yasmin, 23
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The importance of diagnosis for rare and complex conditions
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Ten-year-old Joe from Cambridge (pictured above) was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition as a baby. This helped his family access the right therapies and medical treatments, as well as opening up supportive networks of other families who understood.
“A diagnosis is not a magic bullet for everything being known and the future mapped out, but it gives you more of a framework as to what the challenges might be and enables you to address things with a bit more knowledge of the prognosis in the future.” – Martin, Joe’s dad
Cambridge Children’s Hospital will house a research institute made up of six specialist centres, including genomic medicine. This will help to speed up diagnosis of rare and complex conditions, and open up personalised treatments.
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Joe shares his story
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Top ideas for siblings in hospital
For Sibling Day, Macie from our Youth Forum wrote about how to make the experience of being in hospital with a poorly brother or sister as positive as possible. She has been supporting her brother Oliver for over ten years, after he was diagnosed with a rare cancer as a toddler.
Image: Macie from the CCH Youth Forum with her brother Oliver, during a hospital stay for his cancer treatment
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Cambridge Children's transformation programme will have staff leading the way
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Cambridge Children’s Hospital is launching CCH Frontrunners, an innovative transformation programme designed to help staff drive forward meaningful change in their current work environments while preparing for the transition to the new hospital.
Open to staff from all professional levels and disciplines from partner organisations CUH, CPFT, and across the region, Frontrunners provides dedicated time and resources to tackle a challenge in a current service, training in change management and quality improvement, as well as opportunities to collaborate across disciplines and with patient and family advocates. Through Frontrunners, we can start to test and embed new ways of working, aligned with the CCH vision of integrated care, ensuring the future of CCH is shaped by those who know it best.
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Conversations with staff about future workplace
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Staff from across CUH and CPFT engaging with plans for Cambridge Children's Hospital
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It’s been a busy time for staff engagement. Focus groups led by our external consultants have been focusing on hopes for the new hospital, and concerns. These have been very well attended.
We shared our floorplans with staff who work on the C3 ward at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, something we hope to do with many more staff groups going forward. We also joined the East of England Cancer Education Day, which was a great opportunity to talk to clinicians from around the region, including Lister Hospital, Ipswich, and Luton and Dunstable.
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Exploring opportunities for digital innovation
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Members of the Cambridge Children's Hospital team with Microsoft employees
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With a new hospital built from scratch, the opportunities to harness digital innovation and technology are endless. A workshop, led by Microsoft, was held recently to explore solutions to improve pathways, including ophthalmology, ENT (ear nose and throat) and cancer. The attendees, who included young people, parents and carers, and clinicians, mapped the patient journey, from referral to discharge. The aim was to identify different challenges and come up with ideas to improve the experiences of staff, patients and families.
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Genetic study helps predict childhood kidney cancer development
Every year around 85 children in the UK are diagnosed with the childhood kidney cancer Wilms tumour. A third of patients are born with inherited genetic changes that increase their likelihood of developing this cancer. A global research team, including researchers from Cambridge Children’s Hospital partner organisation CUH, found that these inherited genetic changes don't just increase the risk of cancer but also affect how these tumours develop and respond to treatment.
Image: Professor Sam Behjati, co-senior author of the research, from Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Wellcome Sanger Institute
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Improving communication between professionals and families of children with hydrocephalus
A team of researchers from the University of Cambridge are asking parents and carers of children with hydrocephalus, and other complex conditions, to take part in study. The research will look to co-design a tool to help caregivers communicate with doctors and nurses. The opportunity to join workshops in May is open to people across the East of England. Long term, this work will help improve communication between district hospitals and Cambridge Children’s Hospital. Find out more about the study and register for a workshop.
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Children's Mental Health Week media moments
We were delighted that staff from the mental health wards at Fulbourn were able to join BBC Radio Cambridgeshire’s Chris Mann to talk about their roles working with young people, and about the future hospital. Two members of our youth and young adult forums also joined a discussion about the importance of young people’s voices on the project.
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Staff from CPFT's Ida Darwin discussing their roles in mental health and Cambridge Children's Hospital
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Making connections at SEND events
It’s been a busy few months for the team, attending the Achieving Potential conference in January and more recently the Pinpoint Conference. Both were great ways to connect with parents and carers of children with SEND.
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Daffs are up!
You may remember just before Christmas the project team were out and about planting thousands of daffodil bulbs along the front of the future Cambridge Children’s Hospital site. The flowers have been blooming, bringing a burst of colour to the verge opposite the Rosie Hospital.
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Follow us!
The Cambridge Children's Hospital project can now be found on three social media platforms - and we'd love you join us! You can find us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Visit our website www.cambridgechildrens.org.uk
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