Call for children's heart unit deadline to be extended

The chair of the Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee for Yorkshire and Humber has written to the Secretary of State for Health asking him to extend the deadline for the Independent Reconfiguration Panel’s report on the proposals to reconfigure children’s congenital cardiac services in England.The High Court judgment was not previously available until 24 April, four weeks later than expected, and NHS England has not yet set out how it intends to move forward – making it impracticable for the JHOSC to provide any further comments to the IRP before the current 30 April deadline. Given the current uncertainty about NHS England’s appeal, there are also concerns that the IRP may not be sufficiently clear about NHS England’s intentions for it to complete its report. It would therefore be inappropriate to conclude its review by 30 April as planned. The temporary suspension, and subsequent recommencement of children’s cardiac surgery and interventional cardiology at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, has also significantly increased the complexity of the review, and there is a strong belief this in itself warrants an extension to the IRP’s reporting deadline.