Hello and welcome. To the left is a picture of our son Thomas (Tommy) Frank. Handsome little fella isn't he? This picture was taken just hours after he underwent open-heart surgery; he was only two weeks old. Tommy was born on July 2nd, 2008, with a heart condition called Transposition of the Great Arteries, or TGA. His aorta and his pulmonary vein were plugged into his heart the wrong way round. Basically, this meant that oxygenated blood from his lungs was pumped straight back to his lungs, and de-oxygenated blood from his body was pumped back to his body. Not ideal. In fact, in the words of the doctors, it is a condition 'incompatible with life'. Luckily for us, and for thousands of other parents of sick children - not to mention the sick children themselves - Britain is home to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH). Hopefully you will never have to experience GOSH, but if you do you will learn just what an incredible place it is. Every effort is made to provide accommodation for the parents of in-patients; accommodation is guaranteed for parents of children in intensive care. There are play rooms on every ward, food vouchers for breast-feeding mothers and staff at all levels, from the cleaners through to the surgeons, who do everything to make life as stress-free as possible for parents and patients alike. Not to mention the fact that the provide pioneering medical care that is second to none in the world. It's a world-leading institution and as a nation we should be proud of it. The added bonus is that it's a part of the NHS. This is a very good thing - for an idea of the costs involved in looking after a sick child, see below. The downside of that is, the NHS never has enough money and GOSH requires a lot of hard cash to keep it as good as it is. Great Ormond Street gave our son a life. There's no way we could ever repay that sort of debt. But we can make little efforts. We are holding a little welcome home party for Tommy and are asking you to put your hand in your pocket and donate what you can. If it clinks that's good. If it rustles, even better. You can either give the money directly to us, or you can donate here, online. We've set a fairly modest target, but we will be hounding you for more money in the near future. Robby, for one, hopes to run the London Marathon in 2009 and will probably need to raise £1800 to do so! Donating through Justgiving is quick, easy and totally secure. It's also the most efficient way to donate: Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity (GOSHCC) gets your money faster and, if you're a UK taxpayer, Justgiving makes sure 25% in Gift Aid, plus a 3% supplement, are added to your donation.

Thanks, Robby, Vicki, Evie Rose and Tommy Frank PS: A note on costs - to keep Tommy on the intensive care ward cost £2000 a day. That does not account for the costs of any drugs or medicine, any medical procedures, scans, x-rays, ventilator support and so on. And one can only imagine the cost of the actual heart-bypass operation. Imagine having to pay for that yourself. Even if you had medical insurance with the appropriate cover, imagine how much your payments would increase afterwards in order to cover a child born with a heart condition for the rest of their life. Support GOSH and support the NHS!