Cleft Lip and Palate Centre
Cleft Lip and Palate Centre consists of a cross-disciplinary team responsible for treatment of children and adults born with cleft lip and palate, i.e. clefts in the lip, gum and palate. These are congenital abnormalities where structures in the lip and/or palate have not developed as normal. The clefts are divided into different types: Cleft-lip, cleft palate, combined clefts, submucous cleft palates and “other cleft types”.
The objective of Cleft Lip and Palate Centre is to alleviate the consequences of clefts. The cross-disciplinary team comprises specialist nurses, plastic surgeons, speech therapists/speech and language therapists, dental specialists and dental prosthetists, clinical assistants, ear-nose-throat physicians, clinical geneticists, psychologists and administrative staff.
National function
Cleft Lip and Palate Centre has a national function and covers Denmark east of the Great Belt. If a child is born with cleft lip-palate, physicians and midwives have a statutory obligation to inform one of the two places of treatment in Denmark. The centre covering the west of Denmark is situated in Aarhus.
In organisational terms, the centre is an independent department under the Centre of Head and Orthopaedics at Rigshospitalet. It is physically situated in Hellerup.