05.07.12
Royal Brompton, Leeds & Leicester lose child heart surgery
Children’s heart surgery will be centralised to seven centres, with Leicester and Leeds losing their surgical units, alongside the Royal Brompton in London.
Cardiology services will still be available, meaning children can be assessed for operations.
The Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts (JCPCT) announced that centres will be kept open at Newcastle, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Southampton and two in London;Great Ormond Streetand Evelina Children’s Hospital.
The decision follows the Safe and Sustainable Review, which suggested that treating children in larger centres with more specialised surgeons could provide better outcomes than multiple local units.
The networks are due to be operational in 2014, as the changes are implemented, managed by Network Boards.
Sir Neil McKay CB, chairman of the JCPCT, said: “This is a landmark decision that clinicians and patients have long called for which will enable the NHS to improve care for children with congenital heart disease. The needs of children, not the vested interests of hospitals, have been at the heart of this review.
“We recognise these are difficult decisions to make, and that some people will be disappointed to lose their nearest surgical centre. However, we strongly believe our decision is in the best interests of all children and will ensure services are safe and sustainable for the future.”
Leslie Hamilton, leading heart surgeon and former president of the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery, said: “Operating on children’s hearts is truly demanding and has become more complex over time. Such complex surgery is best delivered by large surgical teams who can guarantee care at all times of the day or night.
“Larger teams of surgeons will result in fewer cancelled operations, reduce the strain on individual surgeons and ensure the service is sustainable for the long term.”
NHS Confederation chief executive Mike Farrar said: “The NHS can save the lives of children by centralizing expertise in fewer specialist centres where care will be of a higher standard.
“Given the full facts, every parent would choose for their child to travel that bit further to be treated by high quality surgeons who are treating similar patients on a very regular basis.”
Mark Hackett, chief executive of Southampton General Hospital, expressed his delight that the heart surgery unit there had been secured, saying the hospital would now be able to “continue to deliver a high quality service for children with heart disease in the South of England, while ensuring families in all areas have access to excellent local care.”
Those campaigning for the Southampton centre argued that if the unit closed, patients on theIsle of Wightwould have had to travel for over the three hours recommended to reach specialist surgery.
President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Dr Hilary Cass, said: “We firmly believe that having fewer, world class specialist surgical centres – and day-to-day care available closer to home – will lead to better survival rates as well as better overall care for children.
“While I understand that parents obviously want the best possible healthcare for their child, it is much better to have the right service further away, than the wrong service situated on your doorstep.”
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