Families ‘would shun Newcastle heart unit’

NHS chiefs have unveiled four options under the Safe and Sustainable review to reconfigure children’s heart surgery at a smaller number of hospitals in England – but only one would see services kept at Leeds Children’s Hospital.

Around 270 patients a year from the region instead face journeying to Newcastle, Liverpool or Leicester for surgery.

Nearly half of patients treated in Leeds would have to travel as much as two hours to Newcastle for surgeons to carry out a minimum of 400 procedures a year, as required by the review to maintain their skills.

But Yorkshire Post analysis suggests only a third of around 120 patients from Leeds, Wakefield, North and East Yorkshire who the review team expects to travel to Newcastle would do so, while the remainder would make the much shorter 75-minute journey by road to Liverpool.

The figures appear to severely undermine the case for retaining surgery in Newcastle since too few patients from Yorkshire would travel to Tyneside to reach the 400 target. The Freeman Hospital in Newcastle performed 255 procedures on 217 children in 2009-10.

Campaigners last night stepped up opposition to the Leeds closure threat with the first of a series of meetings for affected families as a four-month consultation takesplace over the reconfiguration. Sharon Cheng, director of the Leeds-based Children’s Heart Surgery Fund charity, called on the team carrying out the review to revisit the figures.

She said: “I’m really concerned they have overlooked things. Most of the people who come into our ward come in an emergency situation. They only just make it in time to Leeds – as far as they are concerned it is already far enough.”

The medical director at Leeds hospitals, Peter Belfield, said the centre was within two hours drive for 14 million people.

He added: “We firmly believe the facts speak for themselves in terms of the geographical location of Leeds. Many of our patients and families already have a journey within this region to get to Leeds and we know this can be stressful for them. If the Leeds unit closed, hundreds of families would have to incur further distress and cost when travelling much further to other facilities at an already difficult time in their family life.”

In 2009-10 270 children had heart surgery in Leeds, including 122 from Leeds, Wakefield, North and East Yorkshire who would be expected to travel to Newcastle if the highest ranked of four options is selected by NHS chiefs.

Of these, 41 came from North and East Yorkshire which are closest to Newcastle – although even some of these patients are significantly nearer to Liverpool. The remaining 81 would have substantially shorter journeys to Merseyside.

If the Leeds unit closed, 60 patients from Bradford, Calderdale and Huddersfield would be expected to travel around 75 minutes to Liverpool. A total of 85 patients would face journeying 80 minutes to the nearest unit in Leicester from South Yorkshire, and up to two hours from north Lincolnshire.

Safe and Sustainable director Jeremy Glyde said officials believed each of the four networks was “potentially viable”.

“The review team will carry out further testing of the viability of each network, taking into account patient flows in the north, as part of the consultation,” he added.

Details of the consultation are at www.specialisedservices.nhs.uk/safeandsustainable.

Campaigners will meet next at Baldwin’s Omega, Brincliffe Hill, Sheffield, from 5-7pm on Tuesday March 15. A petition can be found at www.thepetitionsite.com/6help-to-save-ward-10-childrens-cardiac-lgi/..