Children's Liver Disease Foundation

Children's Liver Disease Foundation (CLDF) is a UK charity whose purpose is fighting childhood liver disease and raising awareness of childhood liver disease amongst the general public.

CLDF was founded in 1980 by the parents of a little boy named Michael McGough, who died before be could receive a liver transplant. The name was later changed to Children’s Liver Disease Foundation. There is no equivalent organisation anywhere else in the world.^{[citation needed]}

Today the charity works in three main areas, support of families and young people affected by liver disease, funding medical and social research into all aspects of childhood liver disease and education, providing educational services to the general public and the medical profession. CLDF’s chief executive, Catherine Arkley, is an authority on paediatric liver disease. The charity works closely with the three UK specialist paediatric liver centres: Birmingham Children’s Hospital, King’s College Hospital, London and St James’s University Hospital, Leeds.

CLDF provides support to families and young people affected by childhood liver disease, including an ‘on-call’ telephone and email service and face to face meetings with parents and young people at hospitals and clinics.

The charity has also developed a range of literature for families, young people, and healthcare professionals. CLDF’s literature series includes a medical series, with leaflets on the main liver diseases affecting children (biliary atresia, alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency, autoimmune hepatitis, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, Wilson's disease etc.) CLDF has also produced a nutrition series, a support series for families and information written especially for children and young people. CLDF also provides the paediatric liver transplant units with a series of leaflets on transplantation to accompany the paediatric liver transplant programme.

Yellow Alert campaign

CLDF’s prolonged jaundice awareness campaign, Yellow Alert aims to promote the early identification and appropriate referral of babies with prolonged jaundice – a sign of possible liver disease.

External links

• Children's Liver Disease Foundation website