Heart-op hiatus

This is why seriously-ill children would undergo cardiac surgery in Newcastle, Liverpool or Leicester; the inquiry into a number of deaths at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital has prompted health chiefs to limit, still further, the number of paediatric heart units around the country.

However, the presumption, in the consultation exercise now under way, that heart surgery will not be retained in Leeds is undermined by the fact that surgeons in Newcastle would not undertake a specified number of operations each year – even with patients from West Yorkshire added to their clinic list.

This makes it even more imperative that campaigners continue to press health chiefs about the merits of maintaining heart surgery in Leeds. Well-located, this is the only acceptable option for this region.