National Pulmonary Hypertension Services
The pulmonary hypertension service at Hammersmith Hospital is part of the national pulmonary hypertension service for England. The national service offers investigation and treatment to patients with:
• Idiopathic and familial pulmonary arterial hypertension
• Pulmonary arterial hypertension associated with other diseases such as systemic sclerosis, congenital heart disease, HIV and portal hypertension
• Chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension
• Miscellaneous causes of pulmonary hypertension
It is essential that there are no major delays in making a diagnosis and initiating appropriate treatment for pulmonary hypertension and we ask physicians and commissioners to facilitate swift referral of patients to the service.
There are four centres in the national service for adults:
• Hammersmith, Royal Brompton and Royal Free hospitals, London
• Freeman Hospital, Newcastle
• Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield
• Papworth Hospital, Cambridge
Gartnavel General Hospital offers pulmonary hypertension services in Scotland.
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children delivers a national service for children.
A service specification, including standards of care, has been agreed and each centre is audited against these standards on a regular basis.
The national pulmonary hypertension centres of the UK and Ireland, which include the above centres plus the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in Dublin, recently issued the following:
• Consensus statement on the management of pulmonary hypertension in clinical practice (PDF, 982KB, requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, free download)
