Pushing the Boundaries focuses on the work of the largest children's cardiac unit in the UK. Two of its surgeons, Martin Elliott and Victor Tsang, perform extremely advanced surgery that isn't carried out anywhere else in the country, and the team's success rate for heart transplant is well above the international average. Consultant cardiologist Phil Rees is the team's longest serving doctor, and admits that he still finds it difficult not to become too emotionally involved in individual cases The film documents the stories of four children as the team attempt to save their lives: the parents of 8-month-old Aicha, given only a few months to live, refuse to accept the team's decision that there's nothing else to be done, forcing the doctors to reconsider their decision; 8-month-old Natalie's parents are offered surgery that might save their daughter's life, but the procedure is very complex and has never been tried before; 9-year-old Bryan has already had several life-saving heart operations but now a high-risk heart transplant is all that's left to him; and Blessing's parents must decide whether to agree to a perilous operation on their daughter when she is only two days old.
Caught in the Machine looks at the work of Great Ormond Street Hospital's Intensive Care Unit. It is the largest such unit in the UK and takes patients from all over the country. It is often the last resort for those who can't be helped anywhere else and, although most patients leave the ward in three days, some must stay longer. The film follows intensive care consultants Christine Pierce and Andy Petros as they make crucial decisions about their most difficult cases: seven-year-old Ellis has been in a coma for five weeks with an unknown illness, and doctors must keep him alive if they are to have any chance of solving the mystery of his condition; eight-month-old Uzoma has been in hospital since she was born and the team must assess if she will ever be well enough to go home; the parents of eight-month-old Deanne have been told the injuries she suffered as a result of her prematurity are so severe that she is unlikely to survive for long, but her mother doesn't believe this and has asked the hospital to review her case; finally there is a one-day-old baby born without a windpipe and the team must decide whether it is right to try experimental surgery even though it has little chance of success.
The series concludes with An Imperfect Cure, following the staff of Great Ormond Street Hospital's renal department as they treat children for a condition which has no complete cure. Long-term treatment over decades requires an enormous level of cooperation and consent between the medical team, the patients and their parents. But what happens when parents and older children are unwilling to accept the doctors' advice? Doctors Lesley Rees, Rukshana Shroff and Sarah Ledermann must make complex decisions in a never-ending cycle of treatment: 4-month-old Alisha was born with kidney failure. Staff must try to keep her alive until she grows big enough to receive a kidney transplant, but as she suffers repeated infections which threaten her life, staff and her parents must consider whether it is right to carry on. 14-year-old Imaan's kidneys are slowly poisoning her and doctors want to remove them. She is terrified of surgery and refuses to have the operation. Can staff persuade her to go through with it? Bethany was born with mental and physical disabilities, including poorly functioning kidneys. Her father Paul is keen to donate his kidney to his daughter, but staff must decide whether she is likely to survive a transplant - and whether it would be in her best interest.
A look at Great Ormond Street Hospital's oncology department, following doctors as they face challenging ethical decisions about treating children with some of the rarest and most complex cancers in the country. Doctors must decide how to act in the best interest of their patients whilst handling relationships with the children's families.
An intimate portrait of two surgeons in Great Ormond Street's General Surgery unit. Navigating between ground-breaking success and devastating failure, they must balance the risk of surgery against the chance of success. Treating children with extraordinarily complex conditions, some of whom are old enough to be involved in the decision making, this film follows the surgeons, patients and their families as they embark on a journey of preparation towards their operation and into the unknown.
This episode focuses on Great Ormond Street's heart transplant team. Every year, the number of donor hearts decreases: safer roads, better intensive care and a society reluctant to donate means fewer hearts and longer waits for children for whom transplant is the last resort. The Berlin Heart is a revolutionary machine that keeps these children alive. However, it's a precarious existence as the machine can only buy them time until the rare gift of a heart is made.
Modern medicine means that most sick children will recover in a short time but some become dependent on technology to keep them alive. Parents and doctors must decide when it is no longer right to continue treatment.
Short term survival of newborns with complex heart problems is improving, but a long life is the real measure of success. Doctors and parents must decide whether or not to embark on difficult surgery knowing that in some cases, the outcomes remain uncertain.
For children who cannot be cured using conventional methods, the only option is experimental surgery.
In the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, doctors strive to save the lives of three children with life-threatening congenital diseases.
Great Ormond Street Hospital is the last chance for children in the UK whose lungs are failing because of cystic fibrosis and other conditions. In a few very severe cases each year, their only hope of survival is to undergo a radical and risky step - a double lung transplant. With extraordinary access to the medical teams and the families involved for a year, this programme follows the perilous but potentially life-changing process of giving a child new lungs and a new life. Doctors only decide to list a child for transplant when they have less than two years to live with their own lungs. But new lungs - which can be rejected by the body - have a limited life span. Neither doctors nor families can know how long they will last. Children then have to live with the uncertainty of waiting for a matching donor lung to become available. As many as 25 per cent die while they are still waiting. For some lung transplant children, it is only after new lungs have arrived, that the greatest challenges begin. Charlie is nine years old and has cystic fibrosis. For most of his life he has managed to cope but in recent months his condition has rapidly deteriorated. Doctors and his family - and Charlie himself - will need to make a decision quickly. Jess is 14, and was told she should be listed for a lung transplant two years ago. But she was too scared. She made her own decision to take a risk and delay the operation. But has she left it too late? Chloe is 11 and has already been waiting for new lungs for nearly a year. Louie is a few days short of his second birthday. Doctors are considering making him the youngest patient ever to have a lung transplant at Great Ormond Street.
Great Ormond Street is Britain's leading hospital for treating children with serious diseases of the brain - from tumours to epilepsy to rare neurovascular conditions. To save lives, doctors have no option but to undertake treatments which carry grave risks - children may be left with a mental impairment or may not even survive. Trinity is seven years old and has just been diagnosed with a rare tumour in a critical part of her brain. The tumour rests on her brain stem, which controls vital functions. Her parents must decide whether to go ahead with surgery and controversial proton beam therapy. Jack is 16 and suffers from severe epileptic seizures which cannot be controlled through medication. Great Ormond Street's epilepsy team can offer radical brain surgery which could cure him but carries serious risks. For Jack and his family it's a tough choice. Great Ormond Street is a world-leading centre for treating a rare condition affecting the blood vessels of the brain, known as a Vein of Galen malformation. We follow Dr Adam Rennie, a consultant interventional radiologist, as he takes on the treatment of two very young children - Cody is 18 months old and Ella Mae is a newborn baby. The condition is almost always fatal if untreated but the only possible cure is risky. Using a narrow tube fed up into the brain from an artery in the leg, blood vessels must be blocked off using tiny metal coils or glue. Dr Rennie is one of only three doctors in the country capable of carrying out the procedure. One third of his patients will not survive the operation, one third will suffer a minor bleed in the brain, one third will be cured.