Disney helps Great Ormond Street with £10m fundraiser

Great Ormond Street Hospital has enlisted the might of Walt Disney and his characters to help it raise £10 million.

The trust today signed Disney's biggest charity deal outside the US and received an initial £1 million. Under the deal, Great Ormond Street could feature in Disney films, television shows and theme parks. Cartoon characters will be used to promote the trust and convince people to donate. Almost 70 years ago Walt Disney signed his first deal with Great Ormond Street to buy the animation rights to the Peter Pan story - bequeathed to the hospital by its author JM Barrie. Today Disney's current president, Robert Iger, handed over the first £1 million donation as children at the hospital learned to draw the popular cartoons.

The money raised will go towards building a new wing that will include a Disney "interactive" zone with moving cartoon characters to entertain patients.

Mr Iger said: "We will use our business, its workforce and its much loved characters in support of this world-class hospital."

A fundraising website has been set up and the first 50 people to donate will get a rare Peter Pan lithograph from the Walt Disney studios in California.

Speculation was growing about the role of actor Johnny Depp in the hospital's fundraising plans.

It was claimed that the Pirates Of The Caribbean star, 43, made a secret donation of £1million after the hospital saved his daughter Lily-Rose's life when her kidneys failed last year. But a spokeswoman said: "That is incorrect."

It is thought, however, that in November, Depp spent four hours at the hospital telling bedtime stories to patients dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow.