Theresa Villiers has praised the Royal Free Hospital (RFH) after a visit on Friday to see their world leading clinical and research facilities for cancer diagnosis and treatment.
The Royal Free serves patients from across north London, including from Theresa’s Chipping Barnet constituency.
The visiting group included the hospital’s local MP, Tulip Siddiq, and started with a briefing on cancer services from RFH Chief Medical Officer, Gillian Smith, and cancer specialist, Dr Roopinder Gilmore.
This was followed by a tour of the hospital’s clinical research facility, its radiotherapy department, and its nuclear medicine centre. The Royal Free has recently acquired an £8m positron emission topography (PET) scanner. This is 30 times faster than standard PET scanners, and the MPs were told of its huge potential to speed up diagnosis by Head of Nuclear Medicine, Daniel McCool.
Speaking after the visit, Theresa said “I’ve known the Royal Free hospital all my life and it was good to be here to hear about their world-leading efforts on research, diagnosis and treatment for cancer.”
“Not enough people know what an important cancer centre the RFH is. I learned during my visit that the hospital receives almost 50,000 suspected cancer referrals a year and they are carrying 129 clinical studies into 28 different types of cancer.”
“The cutting edge high-tech PET scanner which has just arrived at the hospital should play a hugely important role in speeding up diagnosis of cancer. Early diagnosis is crucial for helping people to beat the disease and is something I have raised in Parliament many times.”
“Research is vital to unlocking new ways to detect and treat cancer and it is hugely impressive that over the past five years nearly 12,000 patients have been recruited by RFH to be part of cancer studies.”
The MP tour concluded in the Pears Building in the Royal Free which is home to the UCL Institute of Immunology and Transplantation. The group was guided around this facility by Dr Hans Strauss, Professor of tumour immunology and director of the institute.
Digital imprint: Promoted by Theresa Villiers of 163 High Street, Barnet, Herts, EN5 5SU.
