Pakistani-born heart surgeon Asif Hassan wins Pride of Britain Lifetime Achievement Award

Dr Asif Hassan, a Pakistani-born children's heart surgeon, has received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Pride of Britain Awards 2026 for 35 years of service to children's heart care in the UK, ProPakistani reported on 24 October 2026.

Key facts

• Award: Pride of Britain 2026 Lifetime Achievement
• Hospital: Freeman Hospital, Newcastle
• Record: 4,000+ child heart operations, about 400 transplants
• Service: 35 years in UK children's heart care

The numbers behind the award

• More than 4,000 heart operations on children.
• About 400 heart transplants.
• Almost 30 years leading paediatric cardiac surgery at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle, one of the UK's specialist centres for children's heart transplants.

What he built

Dr Hassan co-led Newcastle's Bridge to Transplant programme, which uses the Berlin Heart, a mechanical pump that keeps a child's circulation going while they wait for a donor heart. Waits can last months, and the pump is often what keeps a child alive until a match is found.

He also helped introduce a technique the hospital calls "bootless closure", used to close a child's chest after a transplant when the donor heart is too big for the space. He has trained young cardiac surgeons from the UK and abroad.

Two of his former patients had themselves been honoured with Pride of Britain's Children of Courage Award in earlier years.

Why it matters here

The Pride of Britain Awards, broadcast on ITV, are among the UK's best-known honours for ordinary people and public servants, and a lifetime award to a surgeon born in Pakistan is a point of pride for the diaspora and for doctors at home who trained in the same tradition.

For families in Pakistan, children's heart surgery means a long wait at a specialist centre. If your child has been referred for heart surgery, our hospitals directory lists major hospitals in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.