Working for children encompasses the past, present and future of paediatric services at Northwick Park. It is clearly written by Dr Bernard Valman, who readers of a certain age will recall was a co-editor of the Archives of Disease in Childhood with Professor Sir Roy Meadow. His experience as an editor, which I still greatly appreciate in my “growing up” as a paediatrician, is reflected within this impressive book.

He frankly recounts the challenges and rewards of multiagency cooperation and describes the challenge of setting up and maintaining a paediatric unit in a non-traditional University teaching hospital. It is a book which I believe should be read by anyone interested in the practicalities of trying to set up and run services.

As a district general hospital with a Clinical Research Centre, the Paediatric Unit at Northwick Park at its foundation in 1969 was a unique institution. What an opportunity—and, with hindsight, we can …