The Variety Club building at Great Ormond Street

By the 1980s, the 1875 Great Ormond Street building had long outlived its usefulness. Conditions for patients, their families, and staff, had reached intolerable depths of squalor and overcrowding. If Great Ormond Street was going to provide a first-class service in the late twentieth century, a world-class environment was required.

Wishing Well Appeal

After several years' intensive planning, a nationwide public appeal, the ‘Wishing Well Appeal' was launched in 1987. Directed by Marion Alford, Chaired by the former Government Minister Lord Prior and with the Prince & Princess of Wales as patrons, the appeal was unprecedentedly successful, raising £54 M well before the planned deadline.

Variety Club Building

The success of the ‘Wishing Well Appeal' enabled the demolition of the 1875 building and part of the 1954 out-patient wing, and the construction of a new state of the art clinical block, now named the Variety Club Building (VCB) in honour of its biggest institutional donor, the Variety Club of Great Britain.

Diana Princess of Wales opens the Variety Club Building, 1994

The Princess of Wales opened the new building on a snowy February 14 (the Hospital's 'Official Birthday') 1994. Having been Patron of the ‘Wishing Well Appeal', the Princess was subsequently appointed as the Hospital's President, and was a regular visitor until her death in 1997.

In 1998 the Variety Club supported the Island Day Unit - Day Surgery

This is a day care ward for children having investigations or operations under anaesthetic. Children come for their investigations or operations and go home the same day. The types of operations children on Island Day Unit have can include eye surgery, laser treatment and general surgery