Mr Richard Courtenay

Great Ormond Street Hospital receives over 252,389 outpatient visits and 43,778 inpatient visits every year (figures from 2016/17). Most of the children we care for are referred from other hospitals throughout the UK and overseas. There are 63 different clinical specialties at GOSH; the UK's widest range of specialist health services for children on one site. More than half of our patients come from outside London and GOSH is the largest paediatric centre in the UK for:

paediatric intensive care
cardiac surgery - we are one of the largest heart transplant centres for children in the world
neurosurgery - we carry out about 60 per cent of all UK operations for children with epilepsy
paediatric cancer services including bone marrow transplants – with University College London Hospitals (UCLH), we are one of the largest centres in Europe for children with cancer
nephrology and renal transplants
children treated from overseas in our International and Private Patient (IPP) wing

Leading research and development

Through carrying out research with the Institute of Child Health, University of London and international partners, GOSH has developed a number of new clinical treatments and techniques that are used around the world.

The UK’s only academic Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) specialising in paediatrics is a collaboration between GOSH and UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. We are a member of University College London (UCL) Partners, joining UCL with a number of other hospitals – an alliance for world-class research benefitting patients. In partnership with six other NHS trusts, we are the lead provider for North Thames Genomics Medicine Centre, part of the national 100,000 Genomes Project.Take a look at our Research and Innovation pages for more information. 

Education and training for staff working in children's healthcare

GOSH offers a wide prospectus of learning to all staff groups. Together with London South Bank University, we train the largest number of paediatric nurses in the UK. We also play a leading role in training paediatric doctors and other health professionals.

Dementia is an umbrella term for a range of progressive conditions that affect the brain. There are over 200 subtypes of dementia, but the five most common are: Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, frontotemporal dementia and mixed dementia.

The brain is made up of nerve cells (neurones) that communicate with each other by sending messages. Dementia damages the nerve cells in the brain so messages can’t be sent from and to the brain effectively, which prevents the body from functioning normally.

Regardless of which type of dementia is diagnosed and what part of the brain is affected, each person will experience dementia in their own unique way.

Dementia can affect a person at any age but it is more commonly diagnosed in people over the age of 65 years. A person developing dementia before age 65 is said to have young onset dementia.

There are over 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK and this is set to rise to over one million by 2021.