So, adult congenital heart disease is when someone who is born with a heart problem, that’s what the word congenital means, it means from birth, grows into adult life. And because the treatment of children and newborns with heart disease has been so wonderful since the 1960s, there’s now a new population of young adults surviving with congenital heart disease that in the 19th century would’ve been fatal, but they now survive, in usually very good health, to become adults. But those adults with congenital, or inborn, heart disease, need specialised and ongoing care to keep them healthy and well.

Professor David Celermajer is Scandrett Professor of Cardiology and Head of Cardiology at the University of Sydney.