Leeds Children’s Heart Surgery Unit

Greg Mulholland Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

I congratulate my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), on everything that he has done and on securing this debate. It is also good to have four other parliamentary neighbours here, as well as many other colleagues from our region. That speaks for itself.

I put on record my regret that we have still not had a full and proper debate on the Floor of the House of Commons. Six minutes is not enough for me or other hon. Members to state our serious technical concerns about a deeply flawed process, and I do not believe that this debate should be seen as a substitute. However, I thank the Minister and her colleagues for doing the right thing in listening and correctly, considering the huge concerns, referring the decision to the Independent Configuration Panel. That is clearly essential. I am pleased that she and her colleagues did so, considering the outrageous protestations from the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts and, I am afraid, from other organisations trying to stop the process and prevent what is clearly essential democratic scrutiny. That in itself is a matter that should be taken further. It is a disgraceful thing for any body involved in the decision to seek to do.

Briefly, in the time that I have, I will raise with the Minister the slight concern also mentioned by the joint health overview and scrutiny committee for Yorkshire and the Humber. We want an assurance—today is a good opportunity—that the terms of reference for the Independent Reconfiguration Panel will not be restrictive. Otherwise, there is a danger that it could simply repeat the same deeply flawed assessment process that my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey eloquently described. Will the Minister ensure that that is not the case, and that the IRP can properly and fully consider the decision?

We have all heard what a blow the decision has been to the wonderful staff who work at the unit and, most importantly, to the families and children involved, as well as to people in the region and beyond who rely on the unit or could do so in future. We must be clear on this point, which I want the Minister to take away. Of course we have all heard the stories of the awful situation in which families and children have found themselves. Each and every one is heart-rending, and they deserve to be listened to. However, we must also accept that the same stories would apply to any of the units in the review, so that is not the point. The point is a cold, hard one: by the review’s own criteria for bigger and smaller units, the JCPCT has made an absurd decision in favouring the closure of Leeds.

The JCPCT has demonstrated a clear bias all the way through. I am sorry to have to say it, but the JCPCT’s decision was clearly a stitch-up. If it had followed its criteria properly and gone through the process following the criteria set down by the previous Government, it could not have failed to argue, given the troubled times and all the other things that we have heard about, that Leeds must be a fully functioning bigger unit, yet it has not. I believe that investigations are still needed.

It is utterly disgraceful how the JCPCT and others have sought to avoid proper scrutiny. To back up what my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey said, the JCPCT has continued to refuse to provide all the information requested of it by the body charged in the health service to scrutinise it. That is not only disgraceful but quite sinister, and I ask the Minister to look into it properly. If the JCPCT will not release its reports and minutes properly under the Freedom of Information Act, it must say why, but it simply has not done so. I pay tribute to Councillor Illingworth, his predecessor and the body of councillors for all the good work that they have done. They are being refused the information that they need to do their job. That is not acceptable, and I want it to be taken up properly with the JCPCT.

The other issue that has not been raised so far—none of us wants to repeat what has been said—and that I want to bring to the Minister’s attention is the absolute nonsense that despite the geography of the whole country, the Yorkhill unit was not included. There is already a flow of cross-border patients from the north of England to Scotland and the other way around. It is somewhat ironic that Sir Ian Kennedy, who chaired the Safe and Sustainable review panel in England and Wales, also separately commissioned a review by NHS Scotland of Yorkhill. He said:

“The panel had significant concerns about important aspects of the service in the surgical unit...Of most concern was a lack of leadership and coherent team working. Also of concern was a sense that the provision of paediatric intensive care may be unsafe if critical staffing problems are not addressed.”

He concluded:

“The panel was of the view that urgent remedial action is required in PICU to prevent care from becoming unsafe.”

I have to say to the Minister that it is nonsensical as well as dangerous for Yorkhill not to be included in the Safe and Sustainable review. If it had been, the only logical conclusion would have been to keep the Leeds unit open, and to allow the patients in the north of England and south of Scotland to choose between Leeds and Glasgow.

There is a concern about the whole review itself. The Scottish Government—we accept that there is devolution—have now decided that the Glasgow unit does not have to comply with the magical 400 cases per year, but that three surgeons performing 300 operations is enough to be safe.

I am sorry about the time, but as I have made clear, I object to the fact that we have not had a proper debate so far on this serious matter. I will be as brief as I can.

It is simply not acceptable to have one rule for children in Scotland—to say that it is safe to have 300 units—and to say to the people of Leeds that we have to close a perfectly safe unit on the basis of a number that has been dreamt up in Whitehall. That is inconsistent. Yes, there is devolution and we may even have independence, but even then we would still have people crossing the border to access surgery.

This simply does not make sense. It is dishonest. I am afraid to say that the Little Hearts Matter charity has been quite dishonest, on the one hand saying that Safe and Sustainable is the right way forward, and on the other saying that it is okay for Yorkhill to carry on performing only 300 operations per year. That simply does not make sense.

My final question to the Minister is one that has not been answered. If Leeds does close, will we be told how much it will cost to close it? It will cost an awful lot to close and to reconfigure the services. We have not had that figure yet. If we do get it, I think people will be even more angry about the decision to close a much-needed, perfectly safe and excellent children’s heart surgery unit.