Lives will be put at risk if children’s care unit is moved, say parents

Staff at the children’s high dependency at Hull Royal Infirmary were told on Monday they had until Friday to prepare for a relocation to the 12th floor, 10 floors above their current location and nine above the theatres.

But they say that the move will put children in urgent need of surgery at risk as they could face delays in reaching theatre.

Writer and broadcaster GP Taylor, whose 13-year-old daughter Lydia has undergone 23 operations at the hospital since being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease three years ago, said: “There are two sets of lifts and because of the demand it sometimes takes 11 or 12 minutes.

“A child may be critically ill and need to be taken down to the theatre yet on weekends and evenings they can’t access the private lifts at the back. We are outraged.”

The unit cares for up to eight children at a time from an area which covers East Yorkshire and parts of North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.

A doctor who works on the unit said that he move would leave patients “physiologically vulnerable”. Simon Tyrrell, interim medical director for family and women’s health at Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “The trust is temporarily re-locating the paediatric high dependency unit to ward 120 at Hull Royal Infirmary with no change in the number of beds or staff available. “This will see two children’s units merged enabling specialist staff to work more closely together.”

He said that a full risk assessment had been carried out.

The system of moving sick children from the surgical ward to theatre in an emergency “worked well” and porters could “key” a lift for dedicated use.

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