Refer a patient to the Cleft Lip and Palate Service

Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) hosts the North Thames Cleft Lip and Palate Service jointly with Broomfield Hospital in Essex. The service is the largest in the UK and the team works across both sites providing treatment to an average of 150 to 170 new babies per year born with a cleft lip and/or palate.

As a tertiary service, all children must be referred via local hospital consultants, community paediatricians or, in some circumstances, via a GP. The Cleft, Lip & Palate Service accepts antenatal referrals, and referrals from secondary hospitals. Following birth, one of our clinical nurse specialists will pay a maternity hospital visit to the baby within 24 hours followed by regular phone contact.

All referrals need to have the referring consultant and address, addresses and contact numbers for the baby’s parents and GP details.

Contact Clinical Nurse Specialists by telephone and email as soon as possible after diagnosis. A nurse will then make contact with the family to arrange an appointment.

GOSH (London)

Tel: 020 7813 8439 (voicemail available) 

Email: gos-tr.northamescleftnursing@nhs.net

St Andrew's (Essex)

Tel: 01245 516 029 

Email: mse.midessexcleftservice@nhs.net

Contact Clinical Nurse Specialists immediately by telephone.

GOSH: 020 7813 8439

St Andrew's (Essex): 01245 516 029

Please contact the Cleft Lip and Palate department directly on telephone number 020 7813 8439. If the transfer is an emergency (patients that need life or limb saving treatment at GOSH within a few hours), or urgent (patients that need transfer to GOSH but not in the emergency category).

GOSH: Cleft Medical PA

Tel: 020 7829 7922
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust
Great Ormond Street
London
WC1N 3JH

Broomfield Site: Cleft Coordinator

Tel: 01245 516 201
St Andrews Centre
Broomfield Hospital
Chelmsford
Essex
CM1 7ET

Additionally we manage non cleft patients with speech disorders due to palatal dysfunction, as well as our cohort of babies and children with a cleft lip and palate. If you have a child on your SLT caseload who you suspect may have a submucous cleft palate or non-cleft velopharyngeal dysfunction, you can refer them to us.

To do this, please write a referral letter, addressed to Nicole Prendeville, Lead Cleft SLT. In order for the referral to be accepted, a covering letter from the child's GP will also be required.

Nicole Prendeville

Lead Cleft SLT

Great Ormond Street Hospital

Great Ormond Street

London

WC1N 3JH

Cleft & Plastics Surgery Secretary

Great Ormond Street Hospital
London WC1N 3JH
Phone: 020 7762 6970 (extension: 7922)