The picture shows the arm and welcoming environment of the ward in the Great Ormond Street children's hospital ward in 1858. In 1852, Dr Charles West founded a Hospital for sick children in a converted 17th century townhouse in Great Ormond Street. At this time, with the growth in London's population the few general hospitals struggled to cope with the increasing demand - for adults but not children, even the seriously ill. Dr Charles West an expert on diseases of women and children, trained in medicine at Paris and Bonn where hospitals exclusively for children already existed. In the foreground of this picture Dr West and Dr Jenner are tending to child patients. They were determined to provide healthcare to the children of the poor, train paediatratic nurses and increase the number of beds from ten. Today, the hospital is the largest centre for child heart surgery in the UK.