A LIFE-CHANGING service for children with facial deformities is set to be led by Glasgow surgeons. 

Glasgow has led the world in the area of plastic surgery since Professor Ian Jackson, Professor Khursheed Moos and Mr Rab Hide established a service for craniofacial deformities in the 1980s.

The service comes forty years after the inspirational story of 'Boy David' who suffered from a rare flesh-eating disease which ravaged his nose, upper lip and cheeks.

Professor Jackson took in David Lopez after he was abandoned by his family in the Peruvian Amazon. 

He operated on David over 100 times and went on to adopt him into his family.

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The NHS new national service will be hosted at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and the Royal Hospital for Children.

It is expected to provide care for over 220 children and young people a year.

David Koppel, clinical lead for the new service, said: “It is really gratifying that this service now has formal recognition and hopefully will continue to grow and continue striving to provide the best possible craniofacial care to the Scottish population.

"This is a testament to all the hard work of the multiple specialties and individuals involved in providing this specialist care.

“Surgery of this kind is literally life-changing for these children; transformational even. The aim is to improve the quality of life for children and young people across Scotland and will provide a specialist multi-disciplinary approach to diagnosis, surgery and the ongoing care of craniofacial cases that may have resulted from congenital disease, tumour or trauma involving both the floor of the skull and the bones and tissue of the face.”

A multi-disciplinary team will see and treat patients affected by a range of craniofacial deformities.