Centre of excellence

Great Ormond Street Hospital is widely recognised as a world-class research hospital for children.

 We are uniquely positioned to make significant advances in the treatment, understanding and prevention of heart and lung diseases.

With more than 150 years’ experience of caring for children, our expertise and influence in this area is substantial:

• Our cardio-respiratory team is one of the most successful of its kind anywhere in the world. In terms of paediatric medicine, we have the largest heart and lung transplantation programme in the world; the largest Intensive Care Unit in the UK and the only tracheal (windpipe) service in Europe; and the largest cardiothoracic (heart and chest) practice in the UK
  
  

• We have performed around 250 heart and 120 lung transplants
  

• We have pioneered a new catheter technique to replace pulmonary heart valves, thereby eliminating the need for open heart surgery. More than 100 patients have already benefited. As the only centre in the world to perform this procedure, Great Ormond Street Hospital is now training others in Europe and North America to undertake the technique
  
  
• We have won international recognition for our contribution to the understanding of congenital and acquired disease in areas such as heart failure, heart muscle disorders, high blood pressure in heart and lung blood vessels, and the genetic basis of heart disease
   

• We have discovered how to detect the early signs of acquired heart disease in children as young as 10 years old. With this new understanding, it will soon be possible to prevent heart disease developing in children and adults