Congenital Cardiac Services for Children

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) on securing this debate. I thank the Minister for his important comments on, and support for, the motion.

I feel strongly that there should be a change in the configuration of children’s cardiac surgery, but it must create the right configuration. We want the correct answer to the question, and we want the review team to listen to all the arguments and make its decision based on the best possible evidence. I argue strongly, representing as I do part of the city of Southampton, that when we are looking at the important issue of children’s cardiac surgery, we must base our decision on quality.

I have been in regular contact with a constituent of mine, Mr Jim Monro, whose name will be familiar to all Members who have investigated this matter because he is one of the country’s most eminent cardiac surgeons. He is now retired. He first conducted a review into children’s cardiac surgery after the tragedies in Bristol in the 1990s. He feels strongly that he has seen this matter kicked into the long grass for too long. We must crack on and ensure that the review is completed. However, it must take into account the best available evidence and come up with the right outcome. None of us wishes to see a recurrence of the dreadful tragedies in Bristol. That is where the roots of the review lie.

Although I support the need for the review, I do not endorse the process, nor the recommendations in their entirety. I question three elements in particular. Fundamentally, the review must be about quality. We have to ensure that the best outcomes are achieved for the very sickest babies and children. However, the Southampton unit, which has a superb record of outcomes, finds itself in only one option—option B, the so-called quality option. I cannot believe that that is right for one of the highest performing units in the country. It carries out difficult procedures, does not cherry-pick cases where the best outcomes are likely, has proved that it can work collaboratively with Oxford, is widely acknowledged to be one of the best units in the country, and already has three surgeons, with a fourth starting shortly. I have heard colleagues describe it as a perverse outcome that one of the country’s top performing units is included in only one option, in which postcode matters more than the life chances of the sickest babies.

Secondly, and I will not rehearse this argument at great length, there is the additional complication of the Isle of Wight. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) has informed us of that issue clearly. People from Southampton want an answer to that question. Six weeks ago at a consultation meeting, they were promised that more information would be forthcoming from the review team about how significant the Isle of Wight factor was. We are still waiting.

Thirdly, the manner in which the consultation is being conducted has created an adversarial climate in which cardiac unit is put against cardiac unit and surgeon is put against surgeon. I feared that today we would see MP against MP, but we have not. As my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) said, this has been a collaborative debate that has picked up on the strengths of each case.

I welcome the spirit in which this House has responded to the motion.