Surgeon who led UK’s first successful heart transplant operation dies aged 93

A surgeon who led the UK’s first successful human heart transplant operation has died aged 93.

Sir Terence English performed the procedure on Keith Castle, a 52-year-old builder, at a hospital in the village of Papworth Everard in Cambridgeshire in 1979.

It followed a 10-year moratorium on heart transplantation in the UK after three failed surgeries in the late 1960s in London.

Sir Terence died peacefully at his home in Oxford on Sunday.

One of his daughters, Mary, said in a statement released by Royal Papworth Hospital that she and her three siblings were “immensely proud of what dad did”.

Sir Terence, who was born in South Africa in October 1932, worked at Royal Papworth Hospital from 1972 to 1995.

The hospital was then based in the village of Papworth Everard but moved to a new site in Cambridge in 2019.

Sir Terence studied mining engineering at university in Johannesburg before deciding to switch to medicine, at Guy’s Hospital in London.

He became interested in heart transplantation after moving to Cambridge.

Three previous heart transplant attempts in the UK had failed in 1968 and 1969, with the patients living for just 45, two, and 107 days respectively.

None of them made it out of hospital.

With survival rates showing little sign of improving, a moratorium was placed on heart transplantation in the UK.

Sir Terence spent a lot of time going back and forth to California to learn about a heart transplant programme that was seeing better results and bringing that knowledge back to Cambridge.

He said in an interview in 2019: “I’d been turned down by various transplant bodies and had been met with an awful lot of criticism, so we knew this was likely to be the last chance.

“I very much had my back to the wall.”

He undertook his first heart transplant at Royal Papworth Hospital in January 1979 but it was not a success.

“I had a second shot and I was going to take it,” said Sir Terence.

“Our recipient was Keith Castle, a 52-year-old builder from London.

“He was a smoker with peripheral vascular disease and a duodenal ulcer.

“Not the best of candidates you might think, but what always struck me about Keith was that he was a survivor.”

The operation, in August 1979, was a success and Mr Castle lived for five years after his transplant.

In 1984, alongside Professor John Wallwork, Sir Terence performed Europe’s first heart-lung combined transplant, and in 1991 he was knighted for his contributions to surgery and medicine.

He retired in the mid-1990s before later moving to Oxford.

Sir Terence leaves behind his four children, eight grandchildren and his wife, Judith.