Heart unit decision will mean better services for children

THIS month marked an important turning point in the future care of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) in England. We strongly believe that the decision taken by the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts (JCPCT) will improve clinical outcomes and help to save more children’s lives in the future.

Maintaining the status quo was simply not an option. For too long surgical expertise has been spread too thinly across too many hospitals and services need to be better coordinated to deliver expert care closer to where families live.

The decision will mean that children’s heart surgery will be provided in fewer larger centres with the expertise and volume of cases to ensure outcomes for children improve.

New congenital heart networks of care will be developed to ensure that services for children are more joined up, meet new national quality standards and deliver better monitoring of outcomes, allowing for services to be continually reviewed and improved.

We have stood firmly behind this review as we believe it will create a more sustainable service that is safe for the future.

It is vital that we now move forward and make sure that the process of change is embraced straight away with no delays.

Our organisations will help to ensure these changes are implemented so that children have access to world class care in the future.

Settling for anything less is not an option.

From: David Quarrie, Lynden Way, Holgate, York.

CLOSING the children’s special heart unit facility at Leeds General Infirmary is claimed by politicians and the NHS as a move towards greater excellence.

Yorkshire children will now have to travel to Newcastle or Liverpool for their treatment and aftercare – hardly an improvement. No, this is yet another cost cutting exercise and the politicians are deceiving the general public again. I agree costs must be reduced and cuts must be made, but not in these areas.

The Government should be scrapping the Trident replacement, stopping all foreign aid and pulling our troops out of Afghanistan.

From: R Hanson, Swallow Lane, Golcar, Huddersfield.

AS with most things, the Government gave a committee the power to decide which heart surgery units remain open and which close in order to distance itself from an important decision.

However, this is too important an issue for this to be allowed to happen. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley must order the release of all relevant papers, preferably translated into something that is able to be understood, setting out the reasons for this decision and showing that it itsnot something that has been done for the good of the Primary Care Trusts or other people in the NHS, but is in fact the best way forward for the public.