About us
Our unit was this country’s first established children’s kidney programme, pioneering children’s transplantation in 1968 and continuing to do so since then.
There are currently less than 700 children living with a transplant in the UK. 90 of these children receive follow-up care at Evelina London.
We strive to provide high quality evidence based care. Our results are comparable to both national and international data and can be viewed on the NHS blood and transplant website.
Our team
We are a consultant led team, supported by a transplant clinical nurse specialist and other professionals (please see our kidney team page for details). We have strong links with our adult kidney colleagues at Guy’s Hospital.
Live donor transplant programme
We have an active live donor transplant programme, in collaboration with our colleagues at Guy’s Hospital. Currently 70% of our transplants are from live donors.
Pre-emptive transplantation
We aim for pre-emptive transplantation (without prior dialysis) where possible, and achieve this for around 50% of our patients. We introduced our incompatible transplant programme in 2011.
Delivering services across different centres
We are responsible for transplant services for Southampton Children’s renal unit. We also provide transplant services to other national and international centres as needed.
Our transplant highlights
In the past up to 30% of all potential living donor transplants were considered impossible due to incompatibility.
Our children’s blood group incompatible transplant programme is the largest in the UK. Eleven children have been successfully transplanted and to date, all have working transplants.
Our positive results have meant children who would have required prolonged dialysis therapy have had successful transplants.
Established in 2008, this collaborative clinic held at Guy’s Hospital for 16-25 year-olds aims to provide seamless care to our young people during their transition period to adult kidney services.
Led by our senior kidney pharmacist, this collaborative programme supports children and their families as they learn and become confident in managing their long term medicines after transplant
We've pioneered the use of generic immunosuppression in children.
Our safety and quality data from this project was presented at the World Congress of Nephrology 2015 and the International Paediatric Transplant Meeting 2015.
The Evelina London VIPs, our children’s transplant sport team demonstrate the importance of fitness following transplantation and the promotion of organ donation.
The team’s ethos is celebrating the life achievements of our children and their families, while facilitating much needed peer support.