Health chiefs to push on with children's heart unit reforms (From Daily Echo)
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Health chiefs to push on with children's heart unit reforms
6:24pm Friday 8th March 2013 in News
Toby Nash and Nancy Laverty with the Echo petition
HEALTH BOSSES are determined to press ahead with reforming children's heart services despite a ruling that has put the future of Southampton's unit in doubt once again.
Yesterday a High Court judge ruled that the review which led to decision to save children's heart surgery in Southampton was “unfair and procedurally flawed”.
This could mean that doctors and families of patients, who fought so hard to save the city's unit, will be forced to do it all again if the judge decides later this month that the whole consultation is repeated.
But whatever the outcome, the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts (JCPT), which made the controversial decision, vowed to plough ahead with their plans, adding that they would be strongly considering an appeal.
Sir Neil McKay, chairman of the JCPT, said: “The pressing need to reform children's heart services is long overdue and experts have cautioned that further delay in achieving the necessary change would be a major setback in improving outcomes for children with heart disease.”
It comes less than a year after the city's world-class unit was saved from the axe, after the Daily Echo's Have a Heart campaign collected more than 250,000 signatures on a petition urging health bosses to save the unit.
Campaigners included mum Deb Banyard, whose seven-year-old daughter Cora is treated at Southampton, who said the uncertainly was “putting children's lives at risk” while money that should be being spent on improvement and research was being spent “lining lawyers' pockets.”
The cost to the NHS of fighting the legal challenges alone is thought to have topped £2m.
She added: “It has now got beyond ridiculous. I am so angry I cannot tell you.
'Waste of time'
“No one was ever going to buy into this and accept their unit would have to close, and now the process has just turned into an exercise in finger pointing and point scoring.
“I feel like my daughter is no longer important in all of this. They need to find solutions that perhaps do not involve the closure of any units as this will just go on and on.”
Southampton Itchen MP John Denham said it was time the Department of Health started “banging heads together” over the reforms so that a solution could be reached.
He said: “We cannot continue to have this issue bouncing around in the courts forever.
“Hospitals cannot be allowed to pursue their own narrow interests at the expense of the NHS as a whole.”
That was echoed by Emma West, mum of two-year-old Lewis, who is also treated at Southampton.
She said: “This needs to be sorted out once and for all but if we have to do it all again, we will.
“Having said that I think they need to think about whether they should close any of the units, as problems with the decision are always going to be found.
“I think the review was a waste of time and money.”
For all the latest on the Have A Heart Campaign click here
cantthinkofone says...
8:40pm Sat 9 Mar 13
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No.
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Too many units IS the problem.
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This was one of the key findings of the investigation into the Bristol scandal. Lest we forget, that was over a DECADE ago now. How many children have died unnecessarily since then? I shudder to think.
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1) There are not many children with heart problems that need surgery.
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2) If surgeons, and their care teams, do not do something very often, they are liable to make errors.
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3) If surgeons, and their care teams, do something a lot, then they get very good at it.
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It's really IS that blindingly simple.
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We need less children's heart surgery centres, all performing a LOT of operations.
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If the decision is fudged for political reasons, then children WILL die needlessly.
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That's not hyperbole. It's a statement of fact, backed up by good research and evidence. If all the current centres stay open, then children who would have lived will die instead.
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Kinda sickening when you look at it that way isn't it?
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Southampton is the 2nd best in the UK for children's heart surgery - that was the conclusion of the review panel. Children stand a better chance of surviving, and having a good quality of life. So for that reason Southampton should not be closed.
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But some of the units campaigning to stay open CANNOT claim that. They want them to stay open because... well...
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...because they're near to where they live.
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That's not a good enough reason in my opinion.