Sir Scott Macfarlane, of Auckland, KNZM, for services to health
Sir Scott Macfarlane has transformed the treatment and improvement of children with cancer in New Zealand for the past 45 years. Sir Scott was an integral part of paediatric oncology service development between 1980 and 1990, leading the development of a National Child Cancer Service (now National Child Cancer Network) in 2000. He was instrumental in establishing the National Child Cancer Network in 2011, who have oversight of child cancer treatment in New Zealand and reducing inequity of access to child cancer treatment and led the network until 2021. He had advocated for the then Auckland-based Child Cancer Foundation to become a national organisation as it is an integral support system for children and families and helped establish the Waikato branch. He became a paediatric oncologist at Starship Hospital in Auckland, going on to become Clinical Leader and Clinical Director of Starship Hospital. As a result of his nationally coordinated approach to child cancer, the child cancer survival rate has improved from every second child not surviving 40 years ago to the five-year survival rate in New Zealand becoming more than 80 percent, parallel to Māori and Pacific children. He was President of Australia New Zealand Children’s Haematology Oncology Group. Sir Scott was made Life member of the Child Cancer Foundation in 2015 and retired in 2021.