Children's Heart Surgery (Leeds)

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

I am beginning to think that some Members have already seen my speech. I am getting ahead of myself. We have the M1, the A1, the M62 and excellent rail links, which make Leeds very accessible. The Leeds Hospitals NHS Trust has centralised children’s services, which I think meets the requirements of the Department of Health’s critical interdependency report. On 18 February the British Congenital Cardiac Association, which is a leading support organisation of the safe and sustainable review, released a statement saying:

“For these services at each centre to remain sustainable in the long term, co-location of key clinical services on one site is essential.”

Leeds General Infirmary is at the forefront of work on inherited cardiac conditions, and has an excellent record of providing safe, high-quality children’s heart surgery. The Yorkshire region has significantly higher birth rates than other parts of the country, particularly the north-east, and there is no doubt that demand will increase.

The review is informed by the overall opinion that a reduction in the number of centres is the best way in which to secure a safe and sustainable future service. It is guided by four principles, and I believe Leeds more than meets their requirements. The first is quality. The paediatric cardiac service at Leeds General Infirmary extends from pre-natal diagnosis to the treatment of congenital heart disease in adults, with excellent clinical outcomes. It has high standards and a personal service, and, as I have said, is located very centrally.

During the assessment process, Sir Ian Kennedy and his assessment panel visited every children’s heart surgery unit in England. They produced individual assessment reports on each of the units two weeks before the presentation meeting at the joint committee of primary care trusts on 16 February. At the meeting, the four reconfiguration options were presented. They were based on a number of factors contained in the panel’s assessment reports. However, I understand that there are significant factual inaccuracies in Sir Ian Kennedy’s report on the Leeds unit, and that its representatives were given no opportunity during the process to comment or request amendments of the factual inaccuracies before decisions were made about the configuration of the options for consultation.

At a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on heart disease on 9 February, when asked when units would be able to challenge and amend inaccuracies in their reports, Jeremy Glyde, the programme director of the safe and sustainable review, said that that could be done during the consultation process.

The reports that the reconfigurations were based on contain fundamental inaccuracies, but they can be challenged only during the consultation period to decide which option is preferred. For Leeds, these inaccuracies include the following. Sir Ian Kennedy’s report documented that Leeds has no transition nurse and separate paediatric intensive care unit; neither point is factually accurate, to the extent that his assessment panel actually met, and talked to, one of the unit’s three transition nurses. The joint committee of primary care trusts advised at its meeting on 16 February that Leeds had stated that it could not do more than 600 operations. Again, that is factually incorrect— Leeds was never asked—but it was stated as the reason why two of the 14 options that were considered were discounted. The commissioners have acknowledged that this was an assumption and not based on what Leeds had said. In the pre-consultation business case for Leeds, start-up costs were reported as £2 million. That figure was not provided by Leeds, and is not representative of the accurate costs provided to the safe and sustainable review panel.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. A young constituent of mine, Libby Carstairs, was in a poorly state and spent more than six months in the Leeds heart unit. The beauty of her being in Leeds was that her parents, her grandparents, and sometimes even some of her friends, could come over to aid her recovery process. Also, her head teacher from Carr Green school had the privilege of being able to go there with cards from her friends. Does my hon. Friend agree that the value of that to young Libby’s recovery process far outweighs any monetary value?

[Stuart Andrew]

I completely agree. When I worked at Martin house, we found that one of the big problems was the travelling distances—some people lived on the coast in Scarborough, for instance. It is very important that families are able to get to a centre quickly, because when a child is sick they want their mum and dad there—and we want that when we are a bit more than a child too. These facilities must be accessible, therefore.