About us
We are a diverse rural and urban region in England with a population of 5.4 million covering 15,000 sq. km. Our network links 2 Principal Treatment Centres, 5 Paediatric Oncology Shared Care Units and 9 Designated Hospitals across Yorkshire, the Humber, North Lincolnshire, and North Derbyshire who together provide cancer care to young people aged 0-25.
Mission statement
Our purpose is to bring together key partners to co-ordinate services for children and young people with cancer and their families, ensuring they have choice of access to the right care, in the right place at the right time. This care should be tailored to their individual needs, making their cancer journey the best it can possibly be. We are committed to having the voices of children, young people, and their families at the heart of all we do.
Network aims
The Children’s, Teenage and Young Adult Cancer Clinical Network is designed to bring the key teams and personnel together that comprise the clinical and holistic components of the pathway of care for children and young people with cancer. The goal of the Networks is to enable service users to access the right care in the right place and at the right time, including clinical trials, while benefiting from co-ordinated holistic and psychosocial support.
Meet the team
The Children’s, Teenage, and Young Adult Cancer Clinical Network is a small and dedicated team which includes:
Cancer Clinical Network Chair
Ruth Brown
Ruth is Chief Executive of Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust, which specialises in providing integrated care for children and young people with an increasing focus on health inequalities. She is also a trustee of Voluntary Action Sheffield and The Children’s Hospital Charity.
Ruth has spent her entire career in the NHS working in regional and local organisations in both provider and commissioning roles. As CEO for Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust she leads an organisation of more than 4000 colleagues who strive to provide a healthier future for children and young people through both physical and mental healthcare and community services.
Ruth is a compassionate leader who understands the importance of listening. She listens carefully to patients, their families, colleagues and partners in her mission to continuously improve patient and colleague experience. She has a wealth of knowledge in leading complex change at regional level
She believes deeply in the power of partnerships and collaboration and is currently the lead CEO for the South Yorkshire Acute Federation and South Yorkshire Children & Young People’s Alliance, as well as the Co-Chair of the National Children’s Hospital Alliance.
Ruth is an alumni of the University of Sheffield and regularly leads Masterclass sessions in leadership as well as being a member of the Management School Advisory Board
Programme manager
Alex Chilvers
Alex joined the CTYA cancer clinical network in April 2023. Alex is a qualified Manager who has worked for Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust in various operational management roles, including Outpatients, Oncology, Radiology and Leeds Children’s Hospital since 2009. Alex’s focus is to work across the region to improve experience, care and outcomes for patients and their families. In her spare time, Alex enjoys socialising with friends and travelling to sunny places with her family.
Data co-ordinator
Paddy Carley
Paddy joined the CTYA Cancer Clinical Network in May 2023 and provides administrative and data support to the network manager, leads and relevant stakeholders. His role is split between the Yorkshire and Humber Radiotherapy Clinical Network and CTYA Cancer Clinical Network.
Lead Nurses
Julie White (Children’s)
Julie White has been a registered Children’s Nurse for 30 years, qualifying at Leeds College of Health in 1993. She qualified as a Community Children’s Nurse in 2005 and spent 8 years working across numerous communities in Yorkshire. Julie’s passion is her work with children, teenagers with cancer and their families and with 22 years’ experience, is now Candlelighters Lead nurse for Children and Teenage Cancer at Leeds Principal Centre and the Yorkshire & Humber Children’s Teenage & Young Adult Cancer Clinical Network.
Julie wonders whether her love of music and hidden talents of singing, dancing, walking, boxercise may be put to good use across the network!
Hilary Quinton (Children’s)
More information coming soon.
Helen Richards (Children’s)
Helen Richards has been a qualified Children's Nurse for 20 years. After qualifying and doing a year of general paediatrics, Helen quickly found her passion within the Oncology and Haematology speciality and has worked within the Oncology unit at Leeds since 2006. Her skills and expertise in Children's inpatient and Bone Marrow Transplant care led to her becoming the Lead Nurse for Paediatric Oncology and Haematology Research Team, giving her valuable insight into the coordination and delivery of seamless, collaborative and patient-centred care. Helen is now the Lead Nurse for Yorkshire & Humber Children’s Teenage & Young Adult Cancer Clinical Network and has a keen interest in Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement.
Liz Purnell (TYA)
Liz Purnell is the Lead Nurse for Teenagers & Young Adults with Cancer for South Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire, and North Derbyshire. She qualified as a paediatric nurse in 2006 and has spent most of her career working on TYA units across the UK. She has worked on the units in Leeds, Cambridge and is now Lead Nurse in Sheffield providing direct care and support to young people and their families across the region.
Diane Hubber (TYA)
Diane Hubber is the Teenage Cancer Trust Lead Nurse for the North East Yorkshire and Humber region. She originally qualified in 1991 as a registered nurse and worked in adult settings for a year before training as a Sick Children’s nurse. After qualifying she worked in the Children’s Oncology Unit at Leeds, taking a special interest in Adolescent care and completing a specialist course in the subject in London. She was the ward manager of the first teenage unit in Leeds, supporting the development of young people’s cancer services within the trust. From here, she went on to work as a TYA CNS for over 12 years working with young people and services across the region promoting the need for specialist TYA services and supporting their development.
Lead clinicians
Katharine Patrick (Children’s)
Katharine is the ODN Lead Clinician for Children's Cancer and works as a Consultant Paediatric Haematologist at Sheffield Children's Hospital, specialising in paediatric leukaemia and bone marrow transplant.
She qualified from Medical School in Oxford before training in Haematology in Sheffield. Prior to starting her consultant post in 2014, she worked in Toronto gaining additional bone marrow transplant experience.
Katharine is secretary of the UK Children's Leukaemia Clinician's Network and a member of the National Leukaemia Clinical Trials Subgroup.
Dan Stark (TYA)
Dan Stark trained as a medical oncologist in Cambridge, London, and Leeds.
He has been the medical lead for the cancer service for young people in the Yorkshire region since about 2006. He has played his part in building a specialist clinical service for young people in Leeds since the late 1990s. He treats young people with testis cancer or sarcomas, and also supports adult clinicians looking after TYA if they find that helpful.
Dan oversees a local research programme mainly about patient experience, using quality of life data in clinical practice, and novel models of follow-up after cancer. He currently holds competitive research grants from the NIHR (National Institute of Health Research), the ESRC and European Union. He is currently Chair of the National Clinical Studies Group for Teenagers and Young Adults with Cancer.
Dan supports the evolution of NHS policy for TYA cancer care. He sits on the NHS England Clinical Reference Group for Children and TYA with Cancer, where he chaired the consultation on the NHS Service Specification for TYA with cancer.
He has been at the heart of several European initiatives in TYA cancer since 2010. He is currently Chair of the European Network for Teenagers and Young Adults with Cancer.
Service commissioner
Kevin Peters
Kevin is the NHS England Specialised Commissioning Lead for Children/Teenagers & Young Adults with Cancer for Yorkshire and The Humber region. Originally qualifying as a Diagnostic Radiographer Kevin has worked in a number of hospitals in Nottinghamshire, London, and Leeds where a move into general management led to roles in both Radiology and Pathology. Kevin joined NHS England in 2015 and now manages the small team of Service Specialists who support the commissioning of all acute Specialised Services.
Clinical Educator
Kelly Smith
Kelly has worked for Leeds Teaching Hospitals as a Ward Sister and Clinical Educator for 8 years in Children's Haematology and Oncology. She brings a wealth of experience and enthusiasm for training and education to the network team.
Hospital map
Children’s
Teenage and Young Adult
FAQs
Operational Delivery Networks (ODNs) were established in 2012, following the publication of the NHS England Strategy ‘Developing Operational Delivery Networks: The Way Forward’. They cover specialised services which span geographical areas where patient pathways often flow across several service interdependencies and organisations. Cancer Clinical Networks focus on coordinating these pathways between providers to ensure consistent, equitable access to specialist resources and expertise.
The Children’s, Teenagers’, and Young Adults’ Cancer Clinical Networks were established in 2021 to work with patients, families, doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to significantly improve patient outcomes and experience across England.
The Cancer Clinical Networks funding and governance arrangements are provided by North East and Yorkshire NHS England and hosted by Leeds Teaching Hospitals.
You can find them in our guidance and documentation page.