Story originally posted on 12 March 2010.

A team of kidney transplant experts from University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust has returned from a trip to help colleagues in Kathmandu.

Consultant renal transplant surgeons Andrew Ready and Steve Mellor and nephrology consultant Graham Lipkin traveled with Dr David Briggs from NHS Blood and Transplant and Dr Jennie Jewitt-Harris from the Transplant Links Charity (TLC), to the Nepalese capital.

The trip was organised and funded by TLC, a charity co-founded by Dr Jewitt-Harris and Mr Ready in 2007, and which has already sent teams to Trinidad and Tobago, Ghana, Nigeria and Egypt.

Within hours of arriving at the city, which is the fifth highest capital city in the world at just over 4,500ft, the team was observing a successful transplant operation at the Bir Hospital.

Mr Ready, a veteran of the earlier trips, said this was a particularly challenging but rewarding experience: "We watched a transplant on the Saturday, and they did it well. They have a very straightforward set-up, which works well for them.

"We then took part in a workshop which attracted a lot of interest, with local clinicians and also two surgeons coming from Mumbai and two others from Delhi.

"David Briggs did some work with them to help with tissue typing, which was a very interesting element of the trip."

Mr Ready is now also looking into providing advice and guidance on the financial aspects of establishing, maintaining and expanding renal transplant programmes in developing nations.