Oak Cancer Centre

The Oak Cancer Centre is a new clinical care and research centre for the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust’s Sutton hospital campus. The Royal Marsden Hospital opened in 1851 as the world’s first hospital dedicated to cancer diagnosis, treatment, research, and education. The Oak Cancer Centre, named after the Oak Foundation, which donated £25 million to The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity’s Oak Cancer Centre fundraising appeal, will enable clinicians to diagnose more cancers at an earlier stage and will help accelerate the development of new cancer treatments, offering hope for cancer patients worldwide. The building has also been designed with the very clear intent of aiming to enhance patients’ experiences while undergoing treatment. The new building for the world-renowned specialist cancer hospital is located adjacent to the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), The Royal Marsden’s principal academic partner. The Oak Cancer Centre is an integral component of the new ‘London Cancer Hub’, an emerging ‘knowledge cluster’, which will become a global leader for cancer research, treatment, and innovation. Carefully considered clinical design has created a blend of world-leading cancer research space, bringing together researchers in the Kuok Research Centre with outpatient and day treatment activity, including 66 chemotherapy treatment bays in the Olayan Day Care Unit and the new Charles Wolfson Rapid Diagnostic Centre. Using the very latest technology, the new Charles Wolfson Rapid Diagnostic Centre will enable earlier, faster diagnosis for more people, enhancing outcomes. The Kuok Research Centre brings together more than 400 scientists and researchers in a space designed specifically to encourage collaboration at the very heart of the building. The design deliberately embraces the visibility and transparency of this vital work to provide a reassuring presence and a real sense of progress and advancement for those being treated. The site selected for the construction of the new OCC is located in the centre of the existing RMH campus which has developed in a piecemeal fashion since the first building was constructed in the 1960’s. The site location whilst currently tucked away with limited presence from the public realm is strategically well located as it is at the very heart of the London Cancer Hub masterplan. As the site was not deemed as sensitive from a Town planning perspective due to the distance from the predominantly residential wider context and the poor quality of the existing estate, the London Borough of Sutton planning team unusually actively encouraged the project team to increase the height of the proposal to fulfil the site’s development potential. This prompted the hospital Trust to agree to integrate additional future envisaged administrative space requirement into the brief to help address this.