Child heart op units shake-up

Leeds City Council have released a statement following the announcement the Children's Heart Surgery Unit will close.

Leeds City Council condemns today’s decision by the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts to close the children’s heart surgery unit in Leeds.There is absolutely no doubt that the loss of this facility will have a serious and detrimental impact on ill and vulnerable children and their families right across our region.The decision will leave 5.5 million people in Yorkshire and Humberside, and 14 million people living within a two hour drive of Leeds severely and disproportionately disadvantaged.

They add they will be making an immediate referral of the decision to the Secretary of State for Health given the significance this decision has for the region and local health services.

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The Royal Brompton in west London, Leeds General Infirmary and Glenfield Hospital in Leicester will not stop providing surgery immediately as plans to implement the new streamlined service are still being developed.

It is understood that the hospitals will continue to provide the specialist procedures throughout 2013.

Once they stop providing surgery the units will still see patients for diagnosis, monitoring and non-surgical treatment.

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Hospitals in Leicester, Leeds and the Royal Brompton in London are to stop performing heart surgery on children, it was announced today.

In a move to streamline paediatric heart services, three of the 10 specialist units in England will stop performing such procedures on children.

The move comes after an NHS review which concluded that expertise was spread too thinly in the 10 sites and should be concentrated in fewer hospitals.

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The Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts have announced that child heart surgery should be stopped at Royal Brompton in Chelsea, Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, and Leeds General Infirmary.

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You can watch the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts' live discussion about its child heart surgery units review here.

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Ten hospitals that perform child heart surgery in England will find out shortly if they are one of up to four child units that will have to stop performing operations.

If a hospital is selected as one which will stop performing heart surgery on children, it will not cease procedures immediately.

It is understood that the hospitals will continue to provide the specialist procedures throughout 2013 while plans to implement the new streamlined service are being developed.

Once the selected hospitals stop surgery, the units will still see patients for diagnosis, monitoring and non-surgical treatment.

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The controversial review into the future of children's heart surgery could lead to the closure of some of the best known heart centres in the UK. Daybreak's Jonathan Swain reports.

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A leading hospital which was at the centre of a bitter legal dispute will learn today whether its children's heart surgery unit is to close.

The Royal Brompton in Chelsea, west London, argued that the consultations around the streamlining of paediatric heart surgery services in England were unlawful.

But the hospital, which is the largest specialist heart and lung centre in the UK and among the largest centres in Europe, lost the legal row in April after it fought all the way to the Court of Appeal.

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