Craniofacial surgery

The Craniofacial Unit consists of a multidisciplinary team of consultants and associated specialist services.

The unit is staffed by the following consultants:

• Mr Chris Abela –– Consultant Craniofacial Plastic Surgeon (Clinical lead)
• Mr Richard Young –– Consultant Craniofacial Plastic Surgeon 
• Mr Richard Scawn –– Consultant Oculoplastic Surgeon
• Ms Manvi Sobti –– Locum Consultant Oculoplastic Surgeon
• Mr Jonathan Collier –– Consultant Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon
• Miss Lisa Greaney –– Consultant Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon
• Mr Kevin Tsang –– Consultant Neurosurgeon (Charing Cross)
• Mr William Grant –– Consultant ENT Surgeon (Charing Cross)
• Ms Mary Lo –– Consultant Orthodontist
• Ms Kate Barnard –– Consultant Paediatric Dentist
• Ms Ghaida Al-Jaddar –– Consultant Paediatric Dentist
• Mrs Sarah Jones –– Consultant Maxillofacial technician
• Vacant –– Clinical Nurse Specialist
• Ms Anne Marie Rankin –– Clinical Psychologist

The unit at our Trust and treats children and adults with all forms of facial deformity. The craniofacial service offers treatment for all forms of congenital and acquired conditions including craniosynotosis, encephalocoeles and facial clefting syndromes, as well craniomaxillofacial trauma.  

In addition, the unit has an interest in vascular malformations of the head and neck, complex neurofibromatosis type 1, orthognathic surgery, distraction osteogenesis, oculoplastic and orbitopalpebral surgery. 

We have close links with the department of dermatology at our Trust, led by Dr James Shelley, and provide reconstruction for patients undergoing MOH’s micrographic surgery and complex facial skin malignancy. Our Trust is the lead centre of the SSMDT for skin cancer in North West London, led by Dr Rishika Sinha.

Paediatric Services

Chelsea and Westminster boasts the second largest paediatric emergency department in London, and one of the few offering 24 hr cover by a full complement of paediatric nurses and doctors.

Paediatrics falls within the Children’s and Young People’s Directorate, although the paediatric emergency department is within the Medicine Directorate. The Directorate falls under the Division of Women’s & Children’s, HIV & Sexual Health and Dermatology, which includes in addition all of Maternity and gynaecology, and the assisted conception unit. Paediatrics is led by the Clinical Director, Dr Kingi Aminu, and the Divisional Medical Director for the whole division is Mr Roger Chinn.

The overall approach of the paediatric service is family and child centred with multi-professional teams including paediatric nurses, psychologists, dieticians, physiotherapists, social workers and the Hospital School working together. Accommodation for parents is also available.

Supporting and associated services include a team of dedicated paediatric anaesthetists providing full emergency cover. Paediatric imaging incorporates x-ray, ultrasound, CT, MRI, and isotope scanning. There is also a full range of pathology services including histopathology, chemical pathology, microbiology, haematology and immunology. 

The paediatric dept is a large unit, comprising an inpatient base of 60 beds, including a 12-bed adolescent unit, a day case unit, a dedicated 24 hr paediatric emergency department, paediatric theatres and a large outpatient suite. There is also a comprehensive community paediatric service, which is fully integrated with the paediatric department. A level 3 NICU with surgery is on-site, supporting 4,500 deliveries. 

The paediatric emergency department has seen a massive rise in activity from 12,500 when it opened, to over 30,000. It is run as a dedicated 24-hr unit with all staff paediatrically trained. 

We provide secondary paediatric and neonatal surgical services, and we are also a tertiary surgery referral centre. We are organised on a hub-and-spoke principle, with the hub at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and spokes in the NWL sector, including at St. Mary’s Hospital, the Royal Brompton Hospital and West Middlesex Hospital.

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital has recently become the designated centre for complex paediatric and neonatal surgery in North West London, and the lead for a children’s surgical network across the sector. We work with our federated partners Great Ormond Street Hospital and the Evelina Children’s Hospital to provide paediatric intensive care facilities for a small number of children, and to support our expanded Paediatric High Dependency Unit providing Level 2 critical care on site. The Trust also provides tertiary gastroenterology, endocrinology, neurology, burns, plastics and a range of other services including craniofacial and orthopaedic surgery. Other specialties include ENT, ophthalmology, trauma, maxillofacial, dental and orthognathic surgery.  Patients are thus from both the local area, and from the wider North West London sector (and beyond).

The Children’s Unit has undergone a redevelopment with the building of four dedicated paediatric theatres, two of which will be integrated to allow advanced minimally invasive surgery and robotics. An expanded 8-bed paediatric high dependency unit that provides elective short term post operative ventilation opened in April 2010, and the wider redevelopment will replace this with a brand new 12-bed critical care unit to enable further development of the surgical service.