Forty years ago Papworth hospital in Cambridge made history by performing the UK’s first successful heart transplant. Britain’s very first heart transplant actually took place 11 years earlier in London in 1968 – just months after the world’s first such transplant in South Africa – but sadly the recipient in the London operation died from infection shortly afterwards, effectively halting the procedure around the world. Papworth’s eventual success ended that moratorium and introduced a new generation of cardiac healthcare technology that has revolutionised the treatment of heart disease for millions across the globe. 

Four decades later the newly renamed Royal Papworth hospital has completed 1,500 heart transplants. But this month it also achieves another milestone by moving into a new state-of-the-art hospital building that aims to cement Papworth’s status as one of the largest and most advanced specialist cardiothoracic centres in the world. 

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