Clinics and wards used by the Metabolic Medicine department

The Metabolic Medicine department at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) operates across several wards.

We provide a consultant lead, 24/7 on-call service. Both the on-call registrar and metabolic consultant are available for advice and can be contacted at any time via the hospital switch board.

Urgent Admission Criteria 

The inpatient unit is Rainforest Ward which is shared with the Endocrinology team. It is an 8 bedded ward staffed by a team of nurses specialising in the care of children with Metabolic and Endocrine disorders. It is open 24/7 for the care of children with complex medical needs, including those requiring high dependency care.

There is a playroom with a play specialist during the week. There is a ward kitchen and a parents’ room is situated just off the ward to allow them a bit of peace when needed. The cubicles offer a pull-down bed and the bay area has recliner chairs. The ward can generally accommodate one parent by the child.

Elective investigations and specialised treatments (such as enzyme replacement therapy) might be undertaken on Kingfisher Ward which is a nurse-led unit with considerable experience of a wide range of investigative and therapeutic protocols.

The ward provides 16 beds and one cubicle for overnight stays. There is a playroom which is always open, with toys and games for all ages as well as a TV and a games machine.

Kingfisher Ward performs more than 30 types of procedures, and different investigations are performed on different days, according to nursing, laboratory and radiology resources.

The ward is open seven days a week. Some patients are seen for short admissions, while others are admitted for one night or more, depending on the investigations or treatment needed. Usually one parent can stay on the ward with their child.

Patients from overseas are primarily looked after on Bumblebee and Butterfly wards.

There has recently been a reconfiguration of the ward and we are now providing new services;

This service is aimed at being able to see patients who are unwell in their local hospital with suspected or diagnosed metabolic disease as a day-case for rapid testing, diagnosis, initiation of treatment and communication with the family before returning to their local hospital.

The Diagnostic centre will provide a specialised testing service to an agreed list of referrers without need for referral to a GOSH consultant and without GOSH taking over the patients' management. This will be a "testing only" service, with results fed directly back to the referrer for interpretation and the planning of on-going care. The Endocrinology service will provide tests including glucagon stimulation, diagnostic fasts, water deprivation tests, short synacthen tests, GnRH tests and HCG tests and short Synacthen tests while Metabolic Medicine will provide specialised metabolic blood and urine tests and skin biopsy for fibroblast