The South West Peninsula Children's Surgery Unit

09/01/2026

Many congratulations to our colleague Alice - who graduated as an Operating Department Practitioner today. Alice’s training was supported by University Hospitals Plymouth, and she did all her clinical training in Plymouth too. We are delighted that she has joined SWPCSU as a paediatric ODP - looking after critically ill children and those having surgery in Plymouth. Well done Alice and welcome to the team!

17/12/2025

Thank you Sugarplum Soft play for donating these amazing gifts for our patients this December 💖 🤩

Myself and a good friend from Party Perfect UK have been collecting gifts for around a month now, today we were able to donate just over 200 gifts to The South West Peninsula Children's Surgery Unit! 🤩🥳

We hope to bring a smile to every single child and their family having a tough time this Christmas ❤️

Thankyou so much to everyone who donated and made this possible 🙏 we couldn’t have done it without you x

11/12/2025

Merry Christmas from everyone at SWPCSU! And congratulations to our staff members Liz & Debbie - joint winners of this year’s Christmas Bake Off.

31/10/2025

Thank you so much to all the individuals and businesses who have donated Halloween decorations and goodies for our patients. They have really made a spooktacular difference to their visits to hospital. 🎃👻🎃👻

13/09/2025

Well done to our brave and intrepid staff members who abseiled down the hospital building today to raise money for child friendly decor and play equipment in our unit. Thank you all for a great team effort - over £1700 raised so far!!

https://plymouthhospitals.enthuse.com/pf/childrens-theatres?fbclid=IwdGRleAMyOSlleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHtzvc4_mC3_qBtSDTgO8mAq8sJk9HnGwhDp6aq2YTAybW6Wpzg5dMQURQC4F_aem_hQWV9BAvpLpZ-v-BIt54QA

15/07/2025

Today we have received a kind donation from Stan Hacking Concert Band to decorate our sensory room in children’s theatres. Cheque for £1000 presented by Barry Parsons musical director. Stan Hacking Concert band Thank you this will go a long way to making the experience for our children and families good.

23/06/2025

This week we would like to join with schools across the UK and the charity Just Like Us to celebrate School Diversity Week. Inclusion is really important to us at SWPCSU and we want all children and young people to feel safe, valued and respected when they come to theatres.

23/05/2025

We are really proud to have been accredited as an elective surgical hub by the National “Getting It Right First Time” team - we are only the second dedicated children’s surgical service in England to have achieved this recognition.
We had to demonstrate that we meet a range of standards for the care we provide, and accreditation means that we will be able to do more to reduce the length of time children in the southwest have to wait to have some of the more common surgical procedures.

14/05/2025

Happy National Operating Department Practitioner Day! Our wonderful ODPs work across all areas of the operating theatres and we are especially grateful that they are available 24/7 to look after children needing emergency surgery and those who are critically ill. Thank you to all of our brilliant ODPs - pictured here with our equally brilliant therapy dog, Dave.

12/05/2025

Happy International Nurses Day! Our nurses work across all areas of operating theatres including pre-op assessment, assisting anaesthetists and surgeons and in the recovery room. Many of them have multiple skills so that they can work across different surgical specialties and areas of theatres. Thank you to all our fabulous nursing colleagues!

08/03/2025

On International Women’s Day we are proud to celebrate the work of the senior female doctors at SWPCSU. Did you know that having a more diverse theatre team can be associated with better patient outcomes? So we are really pleased that half of our children’s anaesthetists are women and we have senior female surgeons in almost every specialty of children’s surgery here.

27/02/2025

We are so pleased with the new additions to our decor and sea creature theme. Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman do you like that we even have a 52Hertz whale cycling over Dartmoor, as well as a musical octopus?