Children's services
Great Ormond Street Hospital, which celebrates its 150th anniversary on Valentine's Day, still enjoys a unique place in the hearts of the public and the thousands of patients who have been treated on its wards, as well as its status as a world-class institution.
The hospital has the largest paediatric intensive care and surgical unit in Europe and is one of only four research institutions in Britain to receive a top rating from the Higher Education Funding Council.
It trains 25 per cent of Britain's paediatric nurses and treats nearly 100,000 patients every year. Its surgeons carry out 13,000 operations annually and foreign governments frequently send seriously ill children there for treatment.
Pioneering gene therapy now being trialled by Dr Adrian Thrasher could give hope to children who are born without immune systems and face certain death.
The therapy involves genetically altering the bone marrow and could be a successful alternative to bone marrow transplants, which require an exact match and often do not work. Scientists are due to announce preliminary results of the trials on a group of children next month and are already predicting that the outcomes will be "exciting".
