Heart campaign reaches Downing Street (From Daily Echo)

With only nine days to go we need to keep the pressure on to retain this highly rated specialist unit.

The Government going to do what it wants to do, and that is the break up the NHS a bit more to get ready to be sold off.

But all the same good luck people lets hope the right thing is done, for the benefit of ordinary people.

A battle worth fighting for. This is far more important to protest about than the binmens measley 2% cuts on their already over inflated wages and overtime scam.

AAll wrote:
Just one question: have the people using Oxford been asked about travelling to Southampton?

Read the following.......

Excellent heart care on our doorstep
Press Release 1312
20 April 2011

Excellent heart care on our doorstep

The family of toddler Tayla Smith are urging Northamptonshire people to support the specialist children's heart care services at Glenfield Hospital 'on their doorstep'.

Born in November 2009 with two holes in her heart, Tayla, from Kettering, was due to go to John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford early in 2010, but they suspended surgery amid concerns over safety.

Instead she and her family faced a three-hour journey to have treatment, when Tayla was offered alternative surgery in Southampton, but mum Tracey was determined she would go to Glenfield Hospital's East Midlands Congenital Heart Centre (EMCHC).

"When your child is seriously ill, you will travel to the ends of the earth to get the best care," says her mum Tracey who searched the internet and found that one of the best centres was just half an hour away.

"Because it is such a massive operation, you are on the internet and always looking into it and there was Glenfield Until then I didn't know it was a children's heart hospital. We looked at the surgeons, and their success rates, and that's how I knew about Glenfield."

Specialists at Glenfield saw Tayla and made a decision to delay surgery to allow Tayla's body to naturally mend the smaller of the two holes, she underwent successful surgery in September 2010. By this time the smaller hole had closed.

Before her surgery, Tayla was admitted to her local hospital with a chest infection. When it progressed to pneumonia she was transferred to the Leicester Royal Infirmary. "When she nearly died, they were on our doorstep. The consultant came over from Glenfield and saw her - we wouldn't get that if she had gone to Southampton."

Tayla spent six days in Glenfield Hospital, during which time, her mum, Tracey, dad, Steve and 12-year-old brother, Owen, stayed with her.

"It did make a difference, because my husband would have been with me anyway but for my son, he could go home if it was too much for him - it's only half an hour away. If we had been in Southampton, he would have had to have stayed at home and they woud have been extra stress, trying to find someone who could look after him. And being so local, my family could come every day."

Now 16 months old, Tayla, from Kettering, is doing well.

Mr Atillio Lotto, consultant paediatric surgeon at the East Midlands Congenital Heart Centre at Glenfield Hospital, said: "As Tayla's family lives in Kettering I was not surprised to know that after she was referred for her surgery to Southampton General Hospital, which is more than two and half hours journey from Kettering, Tayla’s mum and dad asked to be referred to Glenfield Hospital in Leicester.

"Patients should be made aware that they have a choice over where they want to receive treatment."

The future of Glenfield's children's surgical centre is uncertain after a national NHS review recommended reducing the number of surgical centres. This review, called safe and sustainable, has come up with four options for the future. Each option is a set of surgical centres. The East Midlands Congenital Heart Centre at Glenfield is only in one option - option A.

A public consultation is now asking for your views on these options. Mr Lotto, added: "We need you, our patients and our public, to have your say during this consultation and support 'option A' to help us to hold on to our hearts and keep children's heart surgery at Glenfield Hospital.”

I can't bear cut 'n' paste journalism.
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But you do put forward the case that if Southampton 'wins' its fight, it will inevitably be at cost to another children's cardiac unit elsewhere and the local community it serves. Perhaps we all should have come together and forced the Government to think again.
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May I take this opportunity to sincerely thank the Echo's Ms Adams for all her hard work and those readers who have shared their stories with us. It has been humbling. I hope your efforts will not be in vain.
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SAVE OUR CHILDREN'S CARDIAC UNIT!
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I no longer live in England but I have read with interest the fight to keep this facility open. I just don't understand the decision to close a 'life saving' unit. Surely it is more vital to keep it open and continue to save children. Why is this happening?

I see the brazen denham gets in on the photo opportunity.

Thank God Cllr Smith didnt get too involved after his massive mistake addressing the letter to Andrew Lansley, "SHADOW" UK Secretary of State for Health.
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Still another what do you expect. After all its boys doing an mans job.
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Thank goodness he was never good enough to be an MP

southy wrote:
The Government going to do what it wants to do, and that is the break up the NHS a bit more to get ready to be sold off.

But all the same good luck people lets hope the right thing is done, for the benefit of ordinary people.

Class card again.

I think it's really important for us to emphasize that throughout our "Save Our Heart Unit" campaign we have NOT and will NOT be detrimental to other units unlike others who insist on posting on here! We are fighting to ensure that our children get the best QUALITY of care and Southampton's Children's Cardiac Unit is ranked 2nd in the whole country so there is no question that we have a unit that is already achieving very successful surgical outcomes and in the same review our centre was noted for it's exemplary PICU and for Innovation and Research, our team in Southampton are and have been for decades undertaking the most complex surgical procedures with the best results in the country.
Our "fight" to retain our surgical centre is justified because this review is about achieving a Quality, Safe & Sustainable service for our children now and in the furture and we have been acknowledged in Sir Ian Kennedy's review last summer to be at the top of the game for delivering all this and more because we are ranked 2nd!!!

Just an observation on the 'spiting more fire' article above.
This article seems to imply that had the child in question gone to Southampton she would have received an inferior service particularly when she became very unwell with pneumonia. The Southampton team have an excellent mobile intensive care service which transports children who need intensive care from their local hospitals back to Southampton. The Southampton consultants often travel as part of this team to local hospitals to stabilise sick children. And as the PICU and the children's cardiac services are in the same hospital, the consultants don't need to travel between hospitals to review cardiac patients who are admitted to PICU - they are availble on site to see the children whenever and as often as it is needed even if the child's heart problem is not the main reason they are in hospital.

It's wonderful if children can have complex medical close to their homes but it's wrong to imply that had this child been cared for in Southampton, she would have received less attention from the consultants or inferior care.

suidafrica wrote:
Just an observation on the 'spiting more fire' article above.
This article seems to imply that had the child in question gone to Southampton she would have received an inferior service particularly when she became very unwell with pneumonia. The Southampton team have an excellent mobile intensive care service which transports children who need intensive care from their local hospitals back to Southampton. The Southampton consultants often travel as part of this team to local hospitals to stabilise sick children. And as the PICU and the children's cardiac services are in the same hospital, the consultants don't need to travel between hospitals to review cardiac patients who are admitted to PICU - they are availble on site to see the children whenever and as often as it is needed even if the child's heart problem is not the main reason they are in hospital.

It's wonderful if children can have complex medical close to their homes but it's wrong to imply that had this child been cared for in Southampton, she would have received less attention from the consultants or inferior care.

Firstly, I did not cut 'n' paste that article above.
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It is a press release from somewhere else for their save their cardiac unit campaign. Someone has chosen to post here and I made a response to it.
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That article talks about the possibility of closure of the Oxford unit, where the community there will have to travel miles to get to another unit. Just the same as if Southampton's unit is closed. We are talking about the possibility of up to five unit closures nationwide after all.
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If you are unhappy with the content of that article implying that Southampton would give inferior care, take it up with whoever wrote the press release.
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I can't bear cut 'n' paste journalism, and I did not dump it here.
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FYI: I am of the opinion that none of these centres should be closed, plus Southampton should never have been considered for closure in the first place.