LATCH supports the children and their families who are being treated by the Oncology Unit at the Children’s Hospital of Wales whose catchment area stretches from Chepstow in the South to Aberwystwyth in the North. Around 70 new cases are diagnosed every year.

When a child has been diagnosed with cancer or leukaemia, the chemotherapy+ and/or chemotherapy treatment can last from six months to three years depending on the type. Follow up treatment and checkups mean that a child who has been diagnosed with cancer will be under medical supervision for over 5 years.

Advances in medical technology means that the prognosis for many is good.

According to Cancer Research UK

• More children than ever are surviving cancer
• The survival rate for children’s cancer has more than doubled since the 1960s
• Almost three quarters of children with cancer are now cured of the disease compared with around a quarter in the late 1960s
• For every ten children diagnosed with cancer, almost eight now survive for five years or more, compared with fewer than three in ten in the late 1960s.