https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/wards-and-departments/departments/clinical-specialties/craniofacial-information-parents-and-visitors/craniofacial-unit/
About the Craniofacial Unit
The Craniofacial Unit at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) is one of four supra-regional funded centres in England.
The Department of Health, recognising the importance of concentrating the care of patients with rare conditions requiring extensive multidisciplinary care into specialised centres, has provided all four units with supra-regional funding through the National Specialist Commissioning Advisory Group (NSCAG) since 1987. The other centres are at Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool, Diana Princess of Wales Children's Hospital in Birmingham, and the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.
Craniofacial Unit
We are a large multidisciplinary team, consisting of plastic surgeons, neurosurgeons, neurologists, dentists, ENT colleagues, ophthalmologists, audiologists, genetics colleagues, speech & language therapists, psychologists, as well as two clinical nurse specialists supporting the children and their families.
We see children from newborn through to 18 years old and link in with the adolescent service at University College Hospital (UCH), which includes maxillofacial surgery.
We treat an average of 250 new patients a year and undertake 200 surgical procedures on children with congenital and acquired craniofacial conditions. About 10 per cent of the surgery is complex midfacial surgery including fronto-facial distraction.
Our philosophy of care for the child with a craniofacial condition is to provide a seamless and comprehensive multidisciplinary service that addresses both the equally important functional and psychological aspects of the conditions we see.
We aim to streamline our service to ensure the child and family receive care and treatment that is seen to be current best practice and ensures that problems are addressed early to facilitate the best outcome functionally, cognitively and psychologically that we can.
Weekly structure of the Craniofacial Unit
Monday - Theatre (all day theatre operation list for craniofacial surgery)
Tuesday - Discussions (consultants discuss recent scan results/operation plans/investigations)
Wednesday - Theatre (all day theatre operation list for craniofacial surgery)
Thursday - Clinics (afternoon outpatient clinics held by craniofacial consultants/CNS's/fellows)