Cleft lip and palate anomalies and related conditions

This service falls within the remit of the North Thames Regional Cleft Lip and Palate service based across the twin site centre of Great Ormond Street Hospital and St Andrews Hospital, Broomfield, and its managed clinical network.

The aim of the service is to provide a comprehensive speech and language therapy service for patients who have cleft lip and/or palate and associated conditions.

The specialist speech and language therapist is responsible for the assessment, identification, differential diagnosis and management of speech and language disorders.

In particular the therapist determines the need for and timing of speech and/or language intervention, the planning and undertaking of therapy, helps determine the relationship of structure and function to speech, and advises whether the structure needs to be further modified within the context of the multidisciplinary team.

Patients are seen routinely as outpatients from birth to maturity in multidisciplinary clinics supported by unidisciplinary in depth assessments at key ages within a defined care pathway.

In addition a specialist speech and language therapist works closely with the clinical nurse specialists, who work specifically with children presenting with complex feeding problems and dysphagia.

Linked clinics:

• Velopharyngeal dysfunction clinic

• Prosthetics clinic

• 22q11 deletion syndrome clinic

• Feeding clinic

• Royal London multidisciplinary cleft clinic