Guy's and St Thomas' appoints team of architects and designers for children's cancer service

Guy's and St Thomas' has appointed a team of architects and designers to create the right space and environment within Evelina London Children's Hospital to deliver specialist children's cancer services in future.

Earlier this year, NHS England selected Evelina London Children's Hospital as the future location for the children's cancer Principal Treatment Centre for south London and much of south east England. The decision was announced in March 2024 following a clinically-led, rigorous and comprehensive process that included a public consultation. Since the decision, we have started detailed planning so we can safely transfer these services to Evelina London Children's Hospital. The service is not expected to move before October 2026.

An important milestone in the programme is the appointment of the design team, that includes architects, engineers and other professionals, who will design the clinical spaces for the service.

We carried out a competitive appointment process and involved patient representatives and staff from the existing service in the decision-making. As a result of that process, we have appointed Ramboll who will work collaboratively with ADP Architecture to provide a full range of multi-disciplinary advisory and design services. Ramboll is the lead consultant and multi-disciplinary engineer with ADP providing architectural and lead designer services. The appointed team also includes specialist subconsultants including GL Hearn for town planning, and Art in Site for dedicated wayfinding support.

James O'Brien, the children's cancer Principal Treatment Centre operational delivery director, said: "The appointment of the team from Ramboll and ADP Architecture, with their specialist subconsultants, is a significant step in our journey to bring specialist cancer services to Evelina London Children's Hospital. We are grateful to the patient representatives who got involved in the decision-making process and to colleagues from the existing service who have already done so much to contribute, and to share their expertise and views with us. Their voices are essential to developing these vital services for children and young people from south London and much of south east England, and we are looking forward to involving them at every stage of the programme.

In all of Evelina London's developments, we pride ourselves on working closely with children, families and staff to ensure we are well placed to deliver excellent care in a child-friendly and welcoming environment.

"As with our award-winning Children's Day Treatment Centre, which was designed by ADP Architecture, we will involve children, families and staff in all elements of the design and planning of our cancer service."

Evelina London is holding virtual workshops with children, young people and families during which we will share early designs and ask for their input. The feedback we capture from these sessions will help us to finalise an overview of the floor plans. Find out more about getting involved in children's cancer services on the Evelina London website or email [email protected].