Glenfield Hospital Children’s Heart Surgery Unit
Debate between Liz Kendall and Amanda Solloway(8 years ago)
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Liz Kendall
That is right, and in fact Glenfield’s ECMO training is currently being provided not only to people from three other UK centres, but to people from seven other countries. NHS England seems to think that that work can be picked up and transferred somewhere, quickly and immediately, without loss of quality. In fact, as I know from speaking to many clinicians and nurses, that is not as easy as NHS England says.
Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)
I thank the hon. Lady for bringing this important debate. Given that Glenfield’s outcomes are among the best in the country, and having listened to accounts of the expertise it offers, I wonder whether she will, with me, encourage the NHS to rethink its decision to close it.
Liz Kendall
Absolutely. It would be a big mistake and it does not have to be this way. The unit is improving its care. It already has some of the best outcomes in the country. If we manage the referral patterns, we can ensure that Glenfield and other units continue to improve their care and support. I am sure that the 41 patients from the hon. Lady’s constituency who are currently being treated at Glenfield will appreciate her speaking out.
UHL is one of five tier 1 providers of acute specialised services in the midlands and the east region. Our amazing paediatric intensive care unit is part of a network of centres covering 17 million people. Any significant change in the number of children with complex heart problems being moved away from UHL will have a serious impact on the PICU and destabilise the network. That is not my view—I am not a clinician—but what the clinicians in the hospital tell me, yet so far NHS England has failed to publish any risk assessment of those knock-on effects on Glenfield’s ECMO or paediatric intensive care. The continuing uncertainty about the unit is terrible for the clinicians who are working there and trying to improve care. The threat of closure may be one of the reasons why it is not receiving as many referrals as it normally would, but it is also deeply destabilising for the families whose children need ongoing care and support.