THE work of specialist surgeons at the Oxford Children’s Hospital is to feature in a major new television series.

Children's Craniofacial Surgery, A Fighting Chance, to begin on BBC Two next week, looks at the challenges faced by surgeons at the hospital’s cranofacial unit.

The unit was set up in the mid 1980s and is one of only four in the UK which carries out high risk surgery for children with rare and disfiguring syndromes.

The hospital, on the John Radcliffe Hospital site, is one of the busiest of its kind in the world, with surgeons performing 120 major operations a year.

A documentary team filmed their work over two years, as they carried out intricate, pioneering surgery on babies and children.

Among the children featured in the three-part series is two-year-old Finley Amey, from Andover, who has Apert Syndrome, a rare genetic condition.

It left him with deformed hands and feet and a skull so misshaped that he could not close his eyes.

With the fear his skull would be distorted as his brain tried to grow, the team dismantled it to create more space for the development.

The bones had to be carefully pieced together in what amounted to a construction of a new forehead, under the care of 16 hospital staff.

His mother Diane said: “It is difficult letting people see your private life. But the unit has done a fantastic job. We took part because we wanted people to see the level of expertise that they have in Oxford.”

The programme also features Toulouse-Lautrec syndrome sufferer Salina, who undergoes surgery to move her face forward through a frame bolted to her skull.

A 13-year-old who has undergone 30 procedures and a three-year-old born with five holes in her skull also feature in the programme.

Consultant plastic surgeon Mr David Johnson said: “Some of the syndromes are extremely rare, affecting one in 65,000 children.

“We are very proud of the families and the children themselves.They showed exceptional bravery to open their lives for the world to see.

“We hope the series will help promote awareness of the work that is done here.”

The series starts on Wednesday at 9pm.