Sussex's hospital trust is now a national centre of excellence for brain tumour care

University Hospitals Sussex¹, the NHS trust that runs the Royal Sussex County Hospital, has been named a Tessa Jowell Centre of Excellence for brain tumour treatment, care and research. The Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission presented the award at the Royal Society in London on 14 October.

The trust was one of six neuro-oncology centres in the UK to get the status that week. It goes only to hospitals that meet the mission’s standards in a peer-led review. The trust says the six new designations mean two thirds of the population now live within the catchment area of a Tessa Jowell Centre of Excellence for Adults.

The review panel picked out the trust’s neuroradiology service, with what it called excellent waiting and reporting times, and its neurology support for patients with cognitive and neurological symptoms. It also praised the nurse-led care and the way clinicians build patients’ quality of life and feedback into treatment decisions. The reviewers noted how the trust brings together specialists in surgery, oncology, speech and language therapy and rehabilitation.

One development the trust points to is a new way of collecting and storing tumour samples, so that a patient’s whole genome can be studied. The trust says this helps doctors understand the genetic changes driving a cancer and find treatments more likely to work. It could also open up clinical trials to Sussex patients that they might not otherwise have been able to join.

Matthew White, 42, from Brighton, had surgery at the Royal Sussex County Hospital after he was diagnosed with an astrocytoma in 2023. “I’m so grateful to everyone at Royal Sussex County Hospital for the incredible care I’ve received,” he said. “Living with an incurable brain tumour is difficult, but knowing that the teams are constantly working to improve services and develop new research and treatment opportunities gives me real hope.”

Dr Cressida Lorimer, a consultant clinical oncologist at the trust, said the designation “recognises the significant developments we have made across our services and the strength of the partnerships that underpin them.”