Care in the North West
Tom’s Trust opened its third service at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool in July 2023. The service has been set up to have two clinical psychologists and an assistant psychologist who provide mental health support to children upon diagnosis of a brain tumour, with ongoing support until they reach adult services. They also give vital help to the rest of the family including parents, siblings and grandparents.
Alder Hey Children’s Hospital
Alder Hey is one of Europe’s busiest children’s hospitals, providing care for over 330,000 children each year. Patients are referred to the unit for cancer diagnosis and treatment from catchment areas in Merseyside, the Isle of Man, North Wales and parts of Lancashire, Staffordshire and Cheshire. There are approximately 43 children and young people newly diagnosed with brain and spinal tumours each year seen within the Paediatric Neuro-Oncology Service at the hospital.
Tom’s Trust’s service at Alder Hey as of spring 2025
Dr Meghan Owens, our Alder Hey clinical psychologist with one of the children she supports, Polly
At Alder Hey we currently fund Dr Meghan Owens, Clinical Psychologist, Dr Nihad Mahama, Clinical Psychologist, and Anna Roberts, a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner. As a team they provide therapeutic support for both inpatients and outpatients for children and their and families, neuropsychological assessments including contribution to national trials, and professional liaison with education and other professionals – both within Alder Hey and community teams.
In the last six months the team has provided 26 children with therapeutic support and has seen 13 for neuropsychological assessments – the results from this help to form a pathway of care and provide a benchmark for any future progress or decline. Tom’s Trust believes in supporting the whole family and so our team have also worked with 29 family members offering therapeutic support and three families have attended their group support sessions.