Children’s Cardiac Surgery (Glenfield)

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Westminster Hall

[David Tredinnick]

My hon. and learned Friend says I can make an exception for him, and I am delighted to do that.

The first point I want to make is that there is real concern that we are working on faulty statistics. The data used to make the decision were based on 2006-07. We need only consider the recent publication of the census in London to see the huge increase that there has been in population. There are shifting populations, and there is concern that the analysis is fundamentally flawed. It is not only my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health who has had to consider flawed data recently. What about the west coast main line, whereby we found we were operating with completely inaccurate information? The right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) nods his head. This can happen in Departments, and we must take note of it.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough and the hon. Member for Leicester South have addressed the issue of the ECMO link. To most reasonable people, it seems absurd that the two decisions will not be linked. I am sure that there are legal arguments, but somehow we must get a sensible decision so that both issues can be considered together.

The next point concerns the site of Glenfield. Glenfield is a hugely popular hospital not just with patients, but with surgeons. From, one might say, a feng shui point of view, it is on top of a hill outside the city, and it has a good, clean, clear energy. That is why everybody likes working there: it is nicer for everybody than the Birmingham site, as is proven, I would suggest, by a survey showing that only 2% of the staff in Glenfield want to move to Birmingham. It is not just BBC current affairs programmes that are jumpy about moving out of their current locations, as there is a real problem with the decision to move from Glenfield to Birmingham, as the hon. Member for Leicester South said. The body of knowledge built up over 20 years will dissipate, because many of the people who work at Glenfield simply will not move.

My next point involves the increased pressure on Birmingham, which has been referred to. Can Birmingham deal with it? Somewhere in the briefing papers is a point about Bristol. What happens if something goes wrong at Bristol and patients are moved around? My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough made the point about the terrible tragedy in Wales, during which patients have been brought to Glenfield. Is it wise to concentrate all the resources in the midlands in one centre? I wonder whether it is.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

Birmingham is already having to send patients to Glenfield because it cannot cope with the numbers. Does my hon. Friend not agree that it seems silly to close such a popular centre? As he said, there will be a knock-on effect if other centres close, but patients are already being sent from Birmingham to Glenfield, and children are being sent to different hospitals because there is no room at Birmingham. It seems absolutely crazy that my constituents cannot continue to use the Glenfield hospital, where so much expertise has been created over a number of years.

[David Tredinnick]

I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend, who makes another valid point.

I will not detain the House for long, as other hon. Members want to speak, but I want to make two more points. I have had letters from all over my constituency from people who have benefited from Glenfield. Let us think for a moment. Who put the money into the unit in the first place? Was it all Government money? No, it was not. A lot of charities in Leicestershire have raised money to support the unit. What about their efforts? How will they feel, having struggled over the years to provide a superb local service? It will be a great injustice if that money is dissipated in a reorganisation.

I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Minister in her place, and I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough and all the other Leicestershire Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) and the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), across the Floor, who has worked on the issue. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that this is a critical problem. Please help us.