Childhood Cancer Awareness Month 2023

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

Throughout the month, we’ll be joining other organisations and individuals around the globe in raising awareness about childhood cancer.

Read about what we’re doing right now to try and help beat it – and how you can join us.

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month takes place globally every September.

It’s an annual event that dates back to 1990.

While investment in research and treatment has significantly improved survival rates for those with childhood cancer over the last 30 years, cases have gone up, not down.

Since 1993, the number of children diagnosed with cancer in the UK has increased by 12%.

Cancer remains the most common cause of death in children aged one to 14 in the UK.

But a child doesn’t have to die from cancer for it to take their life. It can take away their childhood, their opportunities to learn and even to have children of their own one day.

GOSH sees children with the most rare and difficult-to-treat childhood cancers.

Every year, around 500 children with cancer are referred to the hospital for treatment. It has the largest children's cancer unit in the UK.

Experts at GOSH are already pushing the boundaries. Pioneering research is underway to find the most effective treatments and cures, which give hope to children and their families.

But these advances have outstripped the hospital’s current cancer care facilities.

GOSH needs a new home to help deliver breakthrough therapies. Somewhere that will treat the child, not just their disease.

Right now, we're raising money to help build a new, world-leading Children’s Cancer Centre at GOSH and to drive transformation in children’s cancer care.

With more space, a new hospital school and access to outdoor areas, the centre will be a gateway for children to go on to better futures, where they not only survive, but flourish.

The Children’s Cancer Centre at GOSH will provide holistic, personalised and coordinated care for children across their entire treatment journey. This includes:

• inpatient wards tailored to children with cancer, including spaces for patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation
• increased access to clinical trials for families with few treatment options, and more research into effective treatments with fewer long-term side effects
• a new critical care unit with on-site accommodation, so families can stay together
• an increased focus on nutrition, physical activity and wellbeing to support children’s recovery
• new imaging technology that improves diagnostic capability by better revealing what’s happening inside cancer cells
• a new hospital school, with more space and upgraded facilities
• outdoor spaces, including a roof garden, where children, families and staff can connect with nature

Find out more about the centre and explore what it will look like by visiting our Children’s Cancer Centre page.

Donate to help build the Children’s Cancer Centre at GOSH today.

Together, we can Build it. Beat it.

Your donation will go to support the vital cancer care services at GOSH, including the refurbishment of GOSH buildings, upgrading equipment, pioneering research, kinder treatments and offering vital welfare services to our families during their time at GOSH.

In the event that [costs change] [additional funds are received over and above our target] [the needs of the hospital or patients change], we reserve the right to redirect funds for use against the hospital’s most urgent needs.