Birmingham Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust provides a comprehensive service to children, young people and their families. It is both a local hospital and a tertiary referral centre. We are one of the leading paediatric teaching centres in the country, with international research and development. BCH specialises in liver transplantation, cardiac, neonatal surgery, burns treatment, renal care and leukaemia research.

Facilities include:

• A 24 bedded Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (increasing in the near future)
• A centre of excellence for children with cancer, cardiac, liver and renal disease
• A national transplant centre – for renal, liver and small bowel transplants
• 280 inpatient and day-case beds including Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
• 38 specialities and supporting departments
• An Emergency Department dealing with over 45,000 patients a year
• Major trauma centre
• Burn, Neonatal Surgery and Education Centre
• Renal Unit
• Teenage Cancer Trust Unit
• Wellcome Clinical Research Facility

Radiology Department

10 paediatric radiology consultants. Radiology consultants have dedicated areas of interest – such as musculoskeletal or cardiac MRI. We all report body and neuro MRI scans. Interventional radiology service is provided by one of the paediatric radiology consultants, together with interventional radiology consultants from the QE hospital.

Radiology facilities include

• 2 x 1.5T MRI
• 1 x 3T MRI
• 1 CT
• 4 US scanners

2 Fluoroscopy rooms

Nuclear medicine

Radiology/MDT meetings include – oncology, neuro-oncology, neuro-epilepsy, renal, liver, GI, neurology, neurometabolic, chest, orthopaedic, rheumatology and general paediatric team, and A and E.

Research activity is increasing – particularly since the installation of the 3T magnet. One of the most prominent areas of research has been developing the use of spectroscopy to characterise brain tumours.

 

Written in October 2012

Katherine Foster, Consultant Radiologist and Educational Tutor, BCH