Row over £1.7m cost of ‘publicity’ for Leeds heart unit

The national reorganisation of children’s congenital cardiac surgery – which has put the Leeds unit under threat – has cost more than £8m so far.

The figures were revealed to MP Stuart Andrew, who said the spending on publicity “beggared belief”.

He added: “That’s an awful lot of money that could be better spent on patient care, frankly.”

Under the Safe and Sustainable review, the number of hospitals offering children’s heart surgery is to be cut, with the Leeds General Infirmary unit one of those earmarked for closure.

Mr Andrew, the MP for Pudsey, was given the information in an answer to a written Parliamentary question.

As well as £1.7m on communications, £301,000 has been spent on legal costs for the judicial review brought by Leeds campaign group Save Our Surgery.

That resulted in the decision to close the Leeds unit being overturned, but last week NHS England said they were to seek leave to appeal.

NHS Specialised Services, the body which carried out the review, also incurred just over £6m of “other costs” between April 2009 and March 2013.

Mr Andrew raised the issue of the further costs of an appeal in the House of Commons yesterday, asking: “Is there any way we can urge NHS England not to appeal, so that we can finally get a resolution to children’s heart surgery in this country?”

Commons Leader Andrew Lansley said the decision about whether to appeal was down to NHS England and they would “consider all the value for money aspects with how they will proceed”.

Fellow MP Greg Mulholland claimed the amount spent on the review demonstrated “chronic mishandling”.

He told the Yorkshire Post: “The recent decision to seek leave to appeal the High Court ruling is yet another reckless waste of taxpayers’ money.

“They should instead be carrying out an independent, impartial review in the interests of patients which sadly has not happened before, and the cost to the taxpayers because of these failings has been significant.”

Leeds councillor John Illingworth, chairman of a Yorkshire-wide committee investigating the review, said it was “huge” sum of money.

“I just don’t think it’s appropriate for NHS bodies to do this kind of thing,” he added.

In response to the cost of communications, a spokesman for NHS England said: “Any significant proposals for change in health services must involve clinicians, patients and the public in a meaningful way.

“The public consultation on Safe and Sustainable in 2011 attracted over 75,000 responses – 20 per cent of formal respondents were from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities and 10 per cent were from young people, making it the largest consultation in the history of the NHS.”

The spokesman added the spending included strategy, advice and planning, producing documents and other materials, event management, media relations, website management, reimbursing travel costs for the public, crèche facilities, refreshments, translating documents and interpreters.