Health

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

Like many other Members, I should like to say a few words about the outcome of the Safe and Sustainable review. Children’s heart surgery services in Glenfield, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), have been earmarked for closure—a decision that came as shattering news when we heard it the other week to many of the staff who work there and many families of patients who have been treated there.

Many of my constituents have got in touch with me, and I have also been contacted by people across Leicester and the country. I do not have time to go through everything that they said, but Stacey Whiteley from Lincoln has contacted me. People have contacted me from Corby, Coalville and Northampton to express deep concern and opposition to the decision. Many of them said that there were a number of questions that they wanted answered and, as I think that they are legitimate concerns, I want to put them on the record.

My constituents have asked me, for example, why the extra options I to L were not presented for public consultation. Other constituents have pointed out that option A was the most popular, but was apparently ignored. Some constituents have questioned the impartiality of some advisers to the panel and others have pointed out that, in the consultation document, option A was described as being consistently the highest scoring option. Why was there a U-turn and option B chosen? It is right that those decisions should be made by clinicians, but these are legitimate questions from people concerned about the decision.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but the decision was made not by clinicians but by commissioners, who have left the eastern side of England between Newcastle and England without a heart unit. Many of my constituents would have gone to Leicester in preference to Newcastle. Now they will probably travel to London or Liverpool.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

Indeed. Many of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents would have been welcome in Leicester. He is quite right: where do our constituents in the east of the country, between Newcastle and London, go? That is something else that many of my constituents have raised with me.

I wish to concentrate on the biggest deficiency of the decision, which is the impact on our world-class ECMO—extracorporeal membrane oxygenation—service. On Friday, the Secretary of State announced that he would accept the recommendation to shift our ECMO service from Leicester to Birmingham. In Leicester, we have had a brilliant, world-renowned ECMO service for 20 years.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for accepting my intervention, as I cannot speak in the debate because I am a Front-Bench spokesperson on health. Is he aware of the international evidence that shows that Glenfield’s ECMO survival rates for children are 50% to 75% higher than other centres? Those very good survival rates, and the benefits that they bring for children, must be taken into consideration as part of the review.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

My hon. Friend is right, and she makes the point with her usual eloquence and insight. I pay tribute to the work that she has done and, indeed, the work of other Leicestershire Members—I see that the hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) is in the Chamber—on the ECMO service. I thank the Minister for agreeing to meet a delegation of east midlands MPs, as we had a useful discussion.

Giles Peek, a consultant paediatric heart surgeon, said last year of the ECMO service:

“We use it not just after surgery but also to stabilise children and to stop them dying before surgery. We are always full and often take children from other hospitals…Our role at Glenfield as a national reference centre for this treatment is important and underestimated.”

I fear that Giles Peek’s concerns have come true and that our ECMO service has been underestimated.

I was grateful that the Minister said in the meeting that the Secretary of State’s decision was based on the Agnes review, but there are other ECMO experts who disagree with that review, so I hope that he will consider publishing the Agnes report. In the few minutes I have left, I shall run through the points that various ECMO experts have made. For example, Glenfield has a world-class facility with more than 20 years’ worth of service. There are deep concerns that by uprooting it from Leicester to Birmingham expertise will be lost along the way. Mr Kenneth Palmer, an ECMO expert, gave a stark warning on Radio Leicester today that, as a result of shifting the children’s ECMO service from Leicester to Birmingham, lives would be lost, saying:

“They could never have the same survival rate in another unit if you move it like this. Leicester has one of the highest survival rates in the world, 10%-20% higher than the normal survival rate in the world. To come up to the same skill it will take 5 years at least.”

He has been joined by other experts who have warned about the impact of shifting the unit from Leicester. Jim Fortenberry, the chair of the ECMO leadership council in Atlanta, when asked whether he agreed that lives would be lost, said:

“I do agree with that unfortunately. I think the risk is great that by attempting to move and start over that you’d really start the learning curve all over again and the improved outcomes take time and experience to develop, and so by effect starting over on the learning curve you certainly would potentially put lives at stake and it could be very significant.”

I accept that the Minister takes advice from experts, but given that there is one set of experts making one argument, presumably he receives advice from a different set. If he published his evidence, those of us who are laymen on health policy can try to make our own judgments as those experts scrutinise one another’s work.

Concerns have been raised about the Birmingham facility and whether it can deal with the new ECMO service. Dr Andrew Coe, a paediatrician from Coventry, said on Radio Leicester this morning that he was

“not convinced that Birmingham will cope with increased demand following closure”

of Glenfield. It was suggested to me that if the 80 ECMO nurses at Leicester are not prepared to leave Glenfield, it will take up to eight years for nurses in Birmingham to be trained to the appropriate level of expertise.

I conclude by mentioning the family from South Cambridgeshire, which the Secretary of State represents, who appeared on Radio Leicester this morning. They said clearly and movingly that the service they received for their little girl was the best they could receive and went beyond what staff needed to do. I hope that the Minister will give us guidance on what is next for Leicester’s ECMO service. I hope that he will consider publishing his evidence, and that we can have some sort of review of, or at least look again at, the shift of Leicester’s ECMO service to Birmingham.