Hiatus over heart shake-up

PARENTS do not need reminding that the health and welfare of their children is paramount all times. Virtually everything else is secondary to this. Although most youngsters suffer nothing worse than the usual childhood illnesses and scrapes, a small minority need expert care and Yorkshire is fortunate that it is home to consultant surgeons of international repute.

A long-awaited children’s hospital was finally opened in Leeds last year to become one of only two centres in England offering a full range of care under one roof. The move came as a national review began into the safety and sustainability of children’s heart surgery which has been under scrutiny since the Bristol heart scandal of the 1990s.

The need for such a review is accepted. Services have been allowed to develop in a piecemeal fashion at 11 centres in England while surgery has become ever-more complex and surgeons can now carry out lifesaving procedures that could not even be contemplated a few years ago.

However, there are worrying signs that hundreds of children from Yorkshire, and their families, will each year be at risk of being seriously disadvantaged amid indications the provision of heart surgery in Leeds is among only one of four preliminary care configurations that are being drawn up by health bosses. If surgery ended in the city, it would leave children requiring heart surgery and other complex treatments travelling to either Newcastle, Liverpool or Birmingham.

Evidence shows children’s heart surgery in Leeds is of high quality. Without doubt, it is safe and sustainable. Furthermore, 14 million people live within two hours of the hospital. Just as critically, this region also has an above average number of youngsters with heart abnormalities.

The alternative prospect of critically-ill babies and children being shunted hundreds of miles up and down motorways does not bear thinking about - not to mention the implications for their lifelong and complex care needs.

Above all it would be an absurd waste of time, effort and money for the NHS to agree to dismantle services at the children’s hospital barely a year after it was finally created. Such a scenario must not be allowed to happen.