Congenital Cardiac Services for Children

Andrew Smith Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) on introducing the motion and arguing his case so powerfully. The debate shows the value of Back Bench-initiated topics, which has enabled the House to speak out on an issue of enormous concern to the public, as demonstrated by the petition he referred to and by the Southern Daily Echo petition of nearly 250,000 signatures that was taken to Downing street earlier this week in support of the Southampton centre, which is mainly what I want to speak about. I will make just a few key points, as many Members wish to speak.

First, I want to praise the work done in the existing centres, including the John Radcliffe hospital in my constituency, which commands fantastic support from the parents of children who have been treated there. The Young Hearts organisation, which was set up to support parents of children with heart conditions in Oxfordshire, has been leading a great campaign, rightly paying moving tributes to the skill and dedication of surgeons, doctors, nurses and whole medical teams who have saved children’s lives and to whom we all owe a debt of thanks.

Secondly, as the hon. Gentleman noted, a key concern in the debate, and in considering the Safe and Sustainable review, must be to secure the best possible treatments and outcomes for children with congenital and other heart conditions. We must be guided by medical and research expertise, which few of us in this place are in a position to second-guess. I am therefore mindful of the joint statement by the Royal College of Surgeons and the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery, in which they strongly support the concentration of treatment centres. They state:

“England has the right number of heart surgeons treating rare heart conditions in children, but we do know that they are thinly spread over too many units. A better service would be provided if this expertise were condensed in fewer units with the critical number of staff to support each other, disseminate new techniques and train the next generation of specialists.”

They believe that the proposals

“will result in rapid and significant improvement in treatment for some of the most vulnerable patients treated by the NHS.”

We should give great weight to that unequivocal statement.

The joint statement went on to suggest—this brings me to my third point—that:

“The benefits of undertaking this change, however, need to be balanced against longer journeys for some families”.

That, along with quality, is a matter of great concern on both sides of the House, and certainly in Oxfordshire. It was also stressed by the Oxfordshire joint health overview and scrutiny committee and the Young Hearts campaign in relation to the implications for patients in our area if any option other than option B, which is to retain the centre at the Southampton University Hospital NHS Trust, is chosen. As today’s Oxford Mail editorial states:

“If Southampton loses out in the Government shake up of children’s heart services, then so does Oxford.”

The benefits of this option, and in particular of retaining the Southampton centre, lie not only in the fact that the Kennedy review ranks Southampton highest in the country outside London for quality, but that the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust has developed a joint network of care with Southampton, enabling local children who have surgery in Southampton to receive follow-up care and support services in the excellent facilities at the Oxford children’s hospital and to be able to progress as they grow older to the Oxford heart centre, thereby maintaining continuity of care, which the hon. Gentleman rightly said was so important in the relationship between children’s services and adult services. I very much hope that this south of England congenital heart network, with Southampton and Oxford working closely together, will be part of the option that is finally chosen.

That network does not figure in the present options, but I welcome the news in today’s briefing from Safe and Sustainable that a specialist team is examining it. The need for this flexibility is a key reason why I support the call in the motion for the joint committee not to restrict itself narrowly to the options set out in the original review. As Young Hearts has pointed out, it is important to consider the children needing paediatric cardiac services who were not born with a heart defect but who have suffered a virus or accident requiring cardiac treatment. The Oxford-Southampton partnership will retain ready access to the skills and facilities needed for that care.

That form of partnership network, with collaboration between a surgical centre and another cardiac care centre, offers a good model for other parts of the country. It enables us to ensure that children have the benefit of both the critical mass of surgery, which surgeons advise can significantly and rapidly improve treatment, and more convenient access to related services and continuing care nearer their homes. Surely that is the outcome that we all want. I very much hope that the review and the Government will take it forward, with the Southampton-Oxford partnership being the best way to retain high-quality and accessible services for central southern England.