Great Ormond Street Hospital - how do children end up there?

[HurdyGurdy19]

Just watching a bit of mindless daytime TV and one of those adverts has come on for "give £x a month so GOSH can continue to give health care to these children".

Which would imply that it's a private organisation/charity, and not an NHS hospital. So are they a private hospital? How do children end up under their care?

Do NHS refer to GOSH and then have to pay GOSH for the care they provide? Or does the GOSH charity pay for all the treatments for the children?

I've always been aware of GOSH, and the links to JM Barrie and Peter Pan, but thankfully have never had a child who needed to be referred there, so the funding aspect hasn't ever crossed my mind, until seeing this advert today.

I know - plenty of hospitals throughout the UK who are referral only! It doesn’t make GOSH particularly different, they have their specialist areas just like any other hospital. GOSH just receives a lot of the ‘limelight’ so is better known

My niece was admitted there via an A&E referral it was the only place that had the skill set and 1 on 1 care she needed. She had to have a nurse with her 24/7. The charity arm paid for a room in a parents house for my sister & Bil to stay in because her health was so fragile.

We fundraise for a local hospital that looked after my daughter during her final days. Over the years we have been able to refurbish the parent accommodation and, thanks to a huge fundraising drive by our fantastic son, we have even able to pay for specialist equipment for their children’s ICU ward that makes a huge difference to other seriously sick children.

I didn't realise GOSH didn't have an a and e. I also assumed that for some children, GOSH would be their local hospital and they would go there for grommets, tonsils, sprained ankles etc. Our nearest children's hospital is Bristol and it's really good. Ds4 goes there for all his cleft lip stuff as they don't do that at our local hospital.

I agree. Alder Hey and Addenbrookes being two of the alternatives.

Myself and my husband were referred there as adults for genetic testing. His niece has CF, and a cousin of mine had 2 kids with it. We were considering children and wanted to know what we were up against.

The tests revealed I'm a carrier, he isn't. As its a recessive genetic condition we'd have been OK. Any children would at worst have a 50% charge of being a carrier but not having the condition.

The children didn't happen though.🙁

Quite a few children are referred by their GP to a specific area. I know two or three adults who were under care when they were children. All experienced awful treatment being told that their health deterioration was all in their head etc. Very sad to be victim blamed at such a young age by health professionals who can't find the answer/dont have the funding for the answer.

My ds was there at Christmas and the Christmas party was the best we have been to! Build a bear for everyone, amazing presents, real reindeers and a very realistic Father Christmas!

We took DS to our local A&E when he was unwell. A kidney condition was suspected, the local drs called GOSH so they were working together to workout a treatment plan.
A few weeks later he was referred to be seen at GOSH as the first line of treatment wasn’t working well enough and the local paed couldn’t start the next level without specialist input.

My nephew was born with a growth on his face and was admitted from a hospital in the South West where he was born and diagnosed to GOSH where he received specialist treatment and surgery. Once he was treated he came home and, as far as I know, hasn't had to return. Luckily it turned out to not be as bad as originally thought in that surgery worked and it didn't regrow.

I think the hospital is mainly a NHS hospital which specialises in pediatrics, but families come from all over so I suspect the monies raised are for extra facilities that make things more pract9cal and comfortable for families that have had to travel.

Dd was under them from two until about eight. Referred to a specialist as it was the only place in the country that dealt with her disability. All NHS.

NHS foundation hospital and a charity
referrals

planned hospital transfer eg from another hospital to Gosh

GP

other regional centres or other hospitals refer to specialities or for advice

national centres of excellence there eg service not provided to that level elsewhere

ED walk in self referral. Present child to a&e

GOSH provide specialist treatment in physical and mental health both inpatient and outpatient

private patient wing for private patient

charity to fundraise

It's nhs and the children's hospital for a certain geographical area but also it's a referral hospital for complex medical conditions for the whole country (even know of someone airlifted from the north of Scotland!) the money they raise help with research into complex conditions, facilities for families having to come a distance, charity cases from overseas etc. things not strictly medical

Your poor grandma. She is basically me but without advanced medicine- my bilateral congenital dislocated hips were discovered when I was two also (those newborn checks are not all they are cracked up to be- they missed my hip dislocations and my daughters) and I had several operations as a toddler alongside wearing casts, but I was allowed to wear the casts at home so I only had short hospital stays after each surgery. My hip sockets were never fully formed though, and I had hip replacements in my early thirties, but I am so very grateful to still have my mobility. I'm 40 and live a relatively normal life!

@Barleysugar86 you really are very similar - and possibly what my grandmother went through from 1918 went towards the success of your surgery. Nana would have been a very early hip replacement candidate, but didn't have enough bone in the end, so had her hip fused - and in 1950 that meant a year in hospital (seeing her own three children once during that time) then another year on bed rest at home.
She was utterly awesome though, and despite all the surgery she had to have over the years due to the pressures on her knees and feet, she lived a very full life

@Ohnoohohhoohh yes. I agree. I work in Nottingham Children's hospital, we are similar.

GODH does have the reputation for thinking they are better than everyone else. When actually they aren't.

I did feel very lonely in there with my DS. My local hospital was lovely, very friendly, kind and supportive but they just didn't know what was wrong and so we ended up at GOSH. I felt a bit overwhelmed by it almost as though DS was too ill to be at the local hospital but not unwell enough to be at GOSH. The staff for the main part were far more aloof and unapproachable than at the local hospital but they did work out very quickly what was wrong with him and got him on the right treatment path for which I will be forever grateful.

My friend's ds was referred there some years ago. As far as I'm aware the NHS does the 'hospital' bit and the charity does everything else - support and accommodation for parents, that sort of thing. I dare say it also provides finance for some incredibly expensive specialist equipment as well, that the NHS always struggles to fund.

my daughter was referred there at 4 years old as I believe others are as her illness was rare autistic encephalitis of the brain after an mmr vaccination
I presumed they would know why it happened to her and cure her after all gt ormond street hospital is the best children's hospital in the world
How naive I was even the top brain surgeons in the neurology department couldn't get to grips with it
It was apparently hellers syndrome, late onset autism, she was unlikely to recover it couldn't be proved it was the vaccination it just happened at the same time etc etc!!
Six days later after brain scans lumber puncture etc the same as she went in no longer able to talk and understand anything basically in her own.world
Never did I feel so low as I thought they could help her
Amazingly all their predictions etc were wrong and six months later to their amazement she made a full recovery from the mmr booster
I found them to be wishy washing and evasive but appreciate might not be the case for everyone
Some of the things i saw there will stay with me for the rest of my life the things children and parents go through is horrific
in their Chapel they have a tree of remembrance and you can write a little note and hang it on the tree lovely but also very sad

I think basically the rarer your illness is the more likely the child is to be referred there and sadly the sicker they are as well regardless of area