What is a Comprehensive Cancer Centre?

Comprehensive Cancer Centres are widely recognised as the gold standard in cancer research and care. These centres are built on one defining idea: bringing research and clinical care together into a single, integrated system.

Rather than operating in silos, Comprehensive Cancer Centres unite researchers, clinicians, health professionals and support teams with a shared purpose of accelerating discovery, improving treatment, and delivering better outcomes for patients.

When research and care are integrated, progress accelerates. The continuous two‑way exchange ensures that care is always guided by the latest evidence, and that research remains grounded in real‑world need.

Internationally, Comprehensive Cancer Centres are proven to deliver stronger short‑, medium‑ and long‑term outcomes because they remove any barriers between discovery and delivery. They enable faster and safer innovation, more personalised care, and better long‑term quality of life for patients.

The Western Australian Comprehensive Kids Cancer Centre brings this internationally recognised model to childhood cancer care in Western Australia.

Recognition

Comprehensive Cancer Centres around the world are recognised for their integration, scale and impact. They attract leading experts, foster global collaboration and set benchmarks for excellence in care, research and training.

The WA Comprehensive Kids Cancer Centre aligns with these international standards, building on existing national and global partnerships to ensure children in Western Australia continue to have access to the best innovations and opportunities.

Benefits for patients and families

The Comprehensive Cancer Centre model brings benefits that aim to improve the care of children with cancer.

The WA Comprehensive Kids Cancer Centre delivers the benefits of the Comprehensive Cancer Centre model, while additionally focusing on areas we know we can make a big difference in.

1. Access to breakthrough treatments: The Centre gives children access to additional cutting‑edge treatment options close to home, without the need to travel interstate or overseas. Additionally, discoveries made through our research can be safely translated into clinical trials and new therapies.
2. Personalised, kinder care: Every child’s cancer is different. Through advanced genetic and cellular analysis, we aim to understand the unique biology of each child’s cancer and tailor treatment accordingly. This personalised approach helps clinicians choose therapies that are more likely to work, while reducing exposure to treatments that may cause unnecessary side effects.
3. Care that extends beyond treatment: Care extends beyond medical treatment to include mental health, nutrition, pain management, reproductive services and survivorship support, ensuring the long-term wellbeing of children and their families.
4. Community at the centre: Through our highly integrated Community and Consumer Advisory Groups, families have a clear pathway to voice their priorities and shape our work, ensuring that care remains compassionate, safe and centred around the needs of the community.
5. Best and brightest talent: We bring together the brightest minds and kindest hearts in kid's cancer research, delivering innovative care with global reach and local compassion. We are built on world-leading science, delivered by the people who treat and research - side by side.
6. First Nations focus: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children with cancer face poorer outcomes and that needs to change. Through strong partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and communities, we are developing culturally safe, effective treatments.

Our journey to becoming a Comprehensive Cancer Centre

Western Australia’s childhood cancer community has long stood on a foundation of excellence. Worldclass research at The Kids Research Institute Australia and The University of Western Australia has driven major scientific advancements in understanding childhood cancers. At the same time, WA children and families have received expert clinical care through the Department of Paediatric and Adolescent Oncology and Haematology at Perth Children’s Hospital, one of Australia’s leading centres for paediatric cancer treatment and home to one of the country’s strongest early phase clinical trials units. Together, these teams have delivered breakthroughs that are already shaping better outcomes for children across WA.

But creating lasting, transformational change required more than excellence, it needed a unified vision.

That vision began with Professor Nick Gottardo, Clinical Director of the WA Comprehensive Kids Cancer Centre. Over many decades, Professor Gottardo has built a deep and trusted relationship with the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation, grounded in shared values and a commitment to improving the lives of children. Alongside this strong relationship, laboratory and clinical leaders worked together to develop a shared strategy, refined through an external review which pushed the team to identify where they were best positioned to make a difference for kids with cancer. Bringing that strategy to life required a high level of coordination, management and oversight effort. The strong relationships and strategic planning culminated in a pivotal moment when Professor Gottardo was invited to present his bold, long-term vision for childhood cancer care in Western Australia: a full integration of research and clinical capacity, and a future where all kids with cancer survive and thrive. 

The Stan Perron Charitable Foundation not only believed in this vision, it also shared it. The Foundation’s extraordinary $135.5 million donation over 10 years set in motion the establishment of the WA Comprehensive Kids Cancer Centre, creating a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve outcomes for children with cancer in WA.

This historic gift was joined by major commitments from other partners who recognised the critical importance of this vision. The Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation made a significant multi-million-dollar contribution, and The University of Western Australia further cemented its long-term commitment by establishing 3 endowed chairs, ensuring the Centre’s research and leadership excellence can continue long-term.

Together, these investments have enabled Western Australia to create a truly integrated childhood cancer centre, one that unites laboratory discovery, clinical care, innovation and community partnership.