CRY Centre for Cardiac Pathology
(CRY CCP)

A centre of excellence for a fast-track expert cardiac pathology service for bereaved families. 

Specialist cardiac pathology at the CRY Centre for Cardiac Pathology is free of charge when the cause of death is unascertained, and the person is aged 35 years or under.

Unexplained sudden death is often recorded by the coroner as due to ‘natural causes’. Experts believe that most of these tragedies are due to sudden cardiac death.

In 2008 CRY’s fundraisers facilitated the establishment of the CRY Centre for Cardiac Pathology (CRY CCP) – a centre of excellence for a fast-track expert cardiac pathology service for bereaved families. 

The CRY CCP was originally based at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London and is currently based at St George’s Hospital, Tooting.

CRY provides this service, funding the cost of coroners’ referrals, so that families no longer have the ordeal of a protracted wait for the cause of death of their child or partner.

Specialist cardiac pathology at the CRY Centre for Cardiac Pathology is free of charge when the cause of death is unascertained, and the person is aged 35 years or under.

Examination & Report

We aim to issue this to coroner within 2 weeks of receiving the specimen.

Coroner & GP

The coroner should then pass this information onto the family and GP without delay.

Professor Mary Sheppard spoke at the 2019 CRY Family Research Day about her role at the CRY Centre for Cardiac Pathology. Watch the video here to see Professor Sheppard share information on how much work the heart has to do and exactly how it functions, before explaining how her work as a pathologist involves looking at the abnormalities in the heart muscle.

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