(11 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State wrote to NHS England as soon as the IRP’s report was published to say that it will need to work with all interested parties to ensure that progress on its new review of congenital heart services is made as quickly as possible. NHS England’s aim is that by June 2014 it will have developed, tested and revised a proposition for the review and undertaken work to identify a preferred approach to implementation.
My Lords, does the Minister recognise that the south Asian communities of Yorkshire, who felt deeply neglected by the previous review, will be watching with great care to see whether this review takes account of travel times and ensures that those communities most at risk of these issues are not only properly consulted but fully weighed in the balance?
Yes, my Lords. The point that the noble Lord makes is extremely important. I think that there were a number of people who, for whatever reason when the Safe and Sustainable review was going on, felt left out of the picture. NHS England is clear that that should not happen again and that lessons have to be learnt so that this is a genuinely inclusive process.
(11 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, does the noble Earl recognise that in Leeds there will be a great sense of justification regarding the criticisms of the process previously followed and a welcoming of the forensic critique by the latest panel of that process? While it is certainly important that collocation of services is not essential to the provision of children’s heart surgery, does the Minister agree that, where there is outstanding and deliberately engineered collocation of high quality, that is an important factor in the future location of children’s heart surgery?
The noble Lord makes another very good point, and Recommendation 3 of the IRP report focuses on that very issue. It says:
“Before further considering options for change, the detailed work on the clinical model and associated service standards for the whole pathway of care must be completed to demonstrate the benefits for patients and how services will be delivered across each network”.
Therefore, that point has been explicitly recognised.
(12 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, the Minister referred to an accumulated deficit. What is that deficit at this point? Will the contract require the new providers to ensure that that accumulated deficit is, over the years, paid off, or is it to be written off at the point at which the new provider takes over?
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, surgery for children with congenital heart disease is much more complex than surgery for adults with congenital heart disease. The focus of the review has been on paediatric services up to now. As the most immediate concerns were around the sustainability of the children’s services, the paediatric cardiac services standards include the need for links with adult services and for good transition services between the two.
Will the Minister confirm that in Yorkshire and Humber, there are 5.5 million people—more than in Scotland—and that there are nearly 14 million people in the catchment area of the Leeds children’s heart unit? Does the Minister imply by his remarks that he rules out Leeds as continuing to have a heart surgery unit? Will the Minister play any role at all in bringing good sense to the need for a major unit in one of the largest regions in this country?
My Lords, I cannot rule anything out, because, as I emphasised, this is a matter for the NHS. In the final analysis, however, this could be a decision that falls on to the desk of the Secretary of State, so it would be unwise of me to be drawn into commenting in too much detail on particular centres of surgery. All I can say about the service at Leeds is that it received a very low score as an outcome of the assessment by the independent expert panel. It was ranked 10th out of 11 centres; that is one above the service at the John Radcliffe Hospital which, as noble Lords will know, was suspended over safety fears in February 2010.