Children's Heart Unit Closures

The NHS's 'Safe and Sustainable' review of the ten children's heart surgery units in England has recommended a reduction in the number of units to create fewer, larger centres. The names of those units earmarked for closure where announced this week.

Hospitals in Leicester, Leeds and the Royal Brompton in London are to stop performing heart surgery on children under the review some time after 2013. It was the reviews finding that claimed that the specialist staff at the existing units were spread to thinly across the NHS in the existing ten units so it plans to streamline them down to seven.

In announcing the decision Sir Neil McKay CB, Chairman of the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts is reported as saying: "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 have been at the heart of this review. Parents, patients and clinicians told us consistently during consultation that quality of care should be the most important factor."

However, there is a lack of confidence in the whole of the review process, which even saw one of the Hospitals legally questioning the review process in the High Court. A number of Patient Groups and Members of Parliament claim that the review has ignored the facts about travel times and the patient level of flows at some of the units. There are also reports that the parents, patients and clinicians feel that their views have been ignored in the process.

The children's heart units that are closing are not happy about the decisions and nor are the parents, patients or the clinicians involved. Here is what they have been saying on the matter:

Giles Peek, a consultant heart surgeon at Glenfield, one of the units earmarked for closure, said: "Leicester has one of the finest heart hospitals in the country. Looking after children with serious conditions, performing complex surgery, nursing them to recovery and managing them into adulthood is an important service which we expect to remain in Leicester. Loss of children's heart services could adversely affect intensive care services across the East Midlands and the national extra corporeal membrane oxygenation service." He then went on to add "If we were to lose our heart service it would have an enormous impact."

Bob Bell, chief executive of the Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, said: "It is very difficult to know what to say at times like these. But it is even more difficult to try and understand how this committee could have come to such a decision. Over the past 18 months we have seen respiratory charities like the Cystic Fibrosis Trust and Asthma UK, independent clinicians from around the world, and many anxious parents, highlighting time and time again the damaging effects on specialist respiratory care for children if Royal Brompton's paediatric intensive care unit is closed. 

Mike Collier, Chairman of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "This result flies in the face of logical health care planning and plain common sense. We genuinely believe that the decision will not deliver the stated aims of the Safe and Sustainable Paediatric Cardiac Services review. This decision seems almost perverse in light of the information which became available during the course of the consultation process. We are surprised that the very clear wishes of over 600,000 people from this region appear to have been disregarded."

It would appear that doing a quick search on the News sites about this review is that in many regions it is seen as a backward step and will remove patient choice and mean that families with very sick children have to travel further for the care they need. It is also felt that children's live could be at risk. A 

Locally there are plans for massive investment into children's heart services with University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust spending £1.7 million on expanding children's heart services over the next three years. Staff are being recruited and wards expanded and the number of operations are expected to increase from about 320 to over 400 a year. The cut off point the review team have used as the benchmark for if a unit should stay open. A petition to started to save the units to save the unit attracted more than 100,000 signatures so far.

In my view the problem with reviews like this is that they have no compassion or empathy for the people affected by the changes they propose. It is just to mathematical and clinical and shows a lack of understanding about peoples needs. 

If it wasn't for the unit in Leeds my daughters cousin probably wouldn't be alive today. She was born with a heart condition and if hadn't have been for the surgeons at the unit in Leeds her chances of survival would have been significantly less. She just happened to be born in the right place and got the right care, other babies are not so lucky. 

Making this type of care less accessible is in my view a crime and I just hope someone wakes up and realises that before these three units are closed. Please support the Leicester Unit by signing their online e-petition.