Campaigners hail councillors’ support in heart surgery fight

A joint report by representatives of scrutiny committees from Yorkshire published yesterday calls on health chiefs to keep children’s cardiac surgery at both Leeds General Infirmary and Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital.

Campaigners last night said they were “extremely pleased” by the decision, which comes amid huge support in the region for services in Leeds that could face the axe under plans to reconfigure highly specialist heart surgery in England.

Retaining surgery in the city is backed in only one of four proposed options for future services and the option has the lowest ranking.

Children face journeying to Liverpool, the Midlands or Newcastle for treatment if surgery is ended in Leeds.

None of the four options recommends retaining services in both Leeds and Newcastle but the joint report by councillors calls on NHS bosses to ensure both hospitals continue to offer a full range of services.

It calls for surgery to be provided at eight national centres which would mean an end to operations in Leicester, Oxford and at one London unit.

The chairman of North Yorkshire County Council’s scrutiny of health committee, Jim Clark, said it was a “significant” step that underlined to health chiefs that councils in Yorkshire were “unanimous” the needs of people in the region could only be properly served by the retention of full services at both the centres in Leeds and Newcastle.

“The importance of Newcastle as a regional centre is less for people living within easy access of Leeds,” he said.

“But for people in much of the northern part of North Yorkshire, it is vital that this service continues to be offered at the Freeman Hospital.”

Coun Clark said NHS officials had now postponed a decision over the final configuration of services until December. He added: “We are hopeful that this will allow wiser counsels to prevail and that children’s cardiac services will be retained both in Newcastle and at Leeds General Infirmary.”

The director of the Leeds-based Children’s Heart Surgery Fund charity, Sharon Cheng, said councillors had carried out a lot of detailed work examining the options.

She said: “We’re thrilled to bits. They’ve understood the logic of keeping services in Leeds just as much as the 600,000 who signed our petition.”

Campaigners say there are 14 million people within two hours journey time of Leeds, which is one of only two hospitals in England to provide the full range of children’s health services under one roof, but if surgery ended in the city hundreds of young people would each year face journeying miles for treatment.

There has been particular criticism of plans drawn up by NHS officials which suggest heart patients from Wakefield, Leeds, East Yorkshire and most of North Yorkshire should travel to Newcastle, which needs to carry out a minimum of 400 operations a year to remain viable, even though alternative services in Liverpool are closer for the majority and for some even Leicester would involve less travel.

A public consultation carried out earlier this year on the plans showed strong support for services to be retained in Yorkshire but there was little backing for Leeds outside the region.

Although NHS officials will make a decision in December, the final say is expected to rest with Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.