Health

Simon Burns Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I, too, rise to speak about the Safe and Sustainable review of children’s heart surgery. The joint committee of primary care trusts—the decision-making body comprising local commissioners—was tasked with considering the pattern of children’s heart surgery services. On 4 July, it announced its decisions, which included the news that Leeds general infirmary will not provide children’s heart surgery in future.

The two-hour radius around the Leeds heart surgery unit reaches 14.5 million people. Including check-up appointments, the unit sees 10,000 children annually and performs about 350 operations.

I acknowledge that the decision was independent of the Government. Local council overview and scrutiny committees are free to refer decisions to the Secretary of State, via the independent panel. I heard this morning that our OSC has just done so; I welcome that move. Our Yorkshire body was due to meet on 24 July. Now that the committee has referred the decision to the Health Secretary, I hope he will revisit it based on the four tests stipulated for the redesign of services.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

If my hon. Friend is correct—and I am sure he is—in saying that his local authority OSC has referred the matter to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the process is that the OSC explains why it does not agree with the decision and asks my right hon. Friend to refer it to the independent reconfiguration panel for consideration. The panel will then respond to my right hon. Friend and state whether it thinks the decision is right or wrong.

[Jason McCartney]

I thank the Minister. I said earlier that the decision would go to the Secretary of State via the independent panel. I look forward to its going through that process.

The first test for redesigning services is that there should be clear clinical benefit. The health impact assessment was that option G—to keep Leeds open—had fewer negative impacts than the chosen option. The second test is clinician support. There is no evidence that the decision has the support of clinicians; in fact, most have given their support to the Leeds unit.

The third test involves the views of the public. Surely nothing can be clearer than the views of the 600,000 people who signed the petition to keep the Leeds unit open, and the admirable cross-party support for the campaign. The fourth and final test is that there should be support for patient choice. A survey in west and south Yorkshire clearly shows that patients would not travel up to Newcastle.

Many constituents with experience of the Leeds unit have been in touch since the announcement on 4 July.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I offer you my congratulations on the honorary degree that you received yesterday from Swansea university?

I recognise that I may repeat many of the things that have been said, but this is such an important issue for constituents in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire that I make no apology for doing so. I am going to talk about the Safe and Sustainable review as well. We have received a number of e-mails from charities yesterday, one of which said:

“As some MPs look to reignite”

the debate about changes to children’s heart units

“we urge MPs to think about the children.”

Frankly, I found that rather offensive, because throughout the whole campaign I have only ever thought about the children.

When I worked at Martin House children’s hospice, I saw the effect on families when they were driven apart because the poorly child had to be a long distance away. On my visit a week or so ago to the unit in Leeds, I met a family who live in Sheffield. They brought their baby who was a few days old into the unit when the baby suddenly went very blue. Thankfully, because of the excellent work at the unit, that baby’s life was saved. That child was described as “marginal” in the review meeting on 4 July. That is not my description, but that of the decision makers. That is a shocking statement in my opinion. I also met another family who live in Sheffield. The father is making three trips a day between Leeds and Sheffield because there are other siblings at home. How on earth are such people expected to travel three times a day up to Newcastle?

I recognise that the review has been independent of Government, but I have grave concerns over the way in which it has been run. I support a review, because I want the best services for our children. I was grateful for the Minister’s comments earlier, when he said that the call-in process means that the matter will go to an independent panel. I would be grateful for clarification of whether that panel is independent of the JCPCT.

[Mr Simon Burns]

May I reassure my hon. Friend that the Independent Reconfiguration Panel is nothing to do with the JCPCT, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State or me? It is an independent organisation that is there to look at reconfigurations across the country that are referred to it by my right hon. Friend following an oversight and scrutiny committee writing to him.

[Stuart Andrew]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for that clarification. I hope that the independent review body will look at the issues that I raise.

Logical health planning clearly dictates that services should be based on where the population live. Doctors should travel to where the patients are, rather than the other way around. Even the British Congenital Cardiac Association has said that:

“Where possible, the location of units providing paediatric cardiac surgery should reflect the distribution of the population to minimise disruption and strain on families.”

After all, it is not buildings that perform operations, but the doctors and surgeons within them. That definition seemed okay in the case of Birmingham. The review stated:

“The Birmingham centre should remain in all options due to the high level of referrals from the large population in its immediate catchment area.”

Why on earth does the argument about the large immediate population not apply equally to Leeds?

The independent analysis of patient flows states that many of the people in west and south Yorkshire and in Lincolnshire will probably go to Birmingham, Liverpool or even London instead. The JCPCT reaches the figure of 403 surgical procedures for Newcastle on the basis of only 25% of the patients going there. Even that is doubtful. How was the figure of 25% arrived at?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

This has been an interesting and diverse debate, giving hon. Members an opportunity to raise a range of different subjects affecting their local communities and the health and well-being of their constituents. If there has been a main theme, it has been the Safe and Sustainable review of paediatric heart surgery. I fully recognise the strength of feeling and emotion on that difficult and sensitive subject, which is why so many Members have talked about it. They have included the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland); the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who mentioned the Brompton hospital in London, which is part and parcel of that review; the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), who took interventions from the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall); and my hon. Friends the Members for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) and for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan).

I fully accept that the reorganisation of children’s cardiac services is a matter of real concern for the families involved, as indicated by the strength of feeling shown in the contributions of all the Members who have taken part in the debate. I know that some families have been disappointed by the outcome of the JCPCT’s recent decision. As hon. Members will know, children’s heart surgery has been a subject of concern for more than 15 years. Clinical experts and national parents groups have repeatedly called for change, and there is an overwhelming feeling that change is long overdue.

As passionately as people want to defend their local hospitals, it is far more important to ensure safety and quality of care for all children with congenital heart disease. We must ensure that those children continue to receive the very best care that the NHS can deliver, and I know that no Member would disagree with that overarching principle. That was what the NHS Safe and Sustainable review was aimed at, and as I have told many Members over the past 22 months, it was wholly independent of Government.

The review was led by clinicians and had the support of the Royal Colleges and national charities. Its conclusions were clear: for children with congenital heart disease to receive the very best care, specialist surgical expertise needs to be concentrated in a smaller number of centres. That will mean that surgeons have sufficient clinical work to maintain and develop their skills; that they can provide those services around the clock; and that they can train and develop the next generation of surgeons. I must stress that the JCPCT’s decision is not about closing or cutting back on children’s heart services—quite the opposite. It is about ensuring that the whole range of children’s heart services can deliver the very best care now and in future.

I thank in passing my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough and the hon. Member for Leicester South for meeting me earlier this afternoon to discuss the important issue of ECMO and how it directly affects Glenfield hospital in Leicester.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I am afraid other duties in the House prevented me from being at the meeting. Had I been there, I would have supported what the hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) and my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) said.

[Mr Burns]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Not only am I sure he would agree with every word that my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough and the hon. Member for Leicester South said, but I have considerable sympathy with him, as he was unable to attend the meeting owing to other pressing parliamentary duties in his role as Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. To be even fairer to the right hon. Gentleman, the meeting was originally planned for 3 pm or 3.15 pm, but unfortunately, neither my hon. Friend, the hon. Gentleman nor I would have been able to attend because we were at that moment in the Chamber.

I understand from the nature of our discussions, as they will, that this is a difficult issue, because there are a number of complicated parts to the problem. I hear what they and other hon. Members have said about the Safe and Sustainable review, but I stick to my original position. The review is independent and is carried out not by the Government, but by the JCPCT. It would be inappropriate for me to become directly involved, to take sides or to pass comment because it would be felt that I was interfering. If hon. Members’ local authorities disagree with the decisions or recommendations of the JCPCT, their overview and scrutiny committees can write to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health to express their disagreement with the decision as it affects their local community or local hospital, and to request that the matter be referred to the independent reconfiguration panel, so that it can consider it independently and come up with a decision.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley said, his local authority has today done just that. It may be helpful to him if I explain the procedure. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State receives the representations and communication from the local authority overview and scrutiny committee specifying that it believes that the decision and recommendation as they affect the local hospital—Leeds, in my hon. Friend’s case—are wrong. The overview and scrutiny committee then asks my right hon. Friend whether he will refer the matter to the independent reconfiguration panel. I do not want to prejudge, but it is almost certain that my right hon. Friend will refer the matter. It will be then be up to the IRP, which is independent, to look at the recommendation and the criticisms made by the overview and scrutiny committee, and to reach a conclusion, which will be an independent conclusion, on whether it agrees with the recommendation or the criticisms of it and perhaps of the procedures involved. The IRP will then make my right hon. Friend aware of its independent view of the complaint.

[Jason McCartney]

Will the Minister clarify the time scale of the procedure he has described and also tell us who has the final say?

[Mr Burns]

It is difficult to give a time scale for this reason: as soon as my right hon. Friend receives representations from the overview and scrutiny committee, he will consider as quickly as he can whether to make a referral. As I have said, in the life of the IRP, every request for a referral has been granted—that is certainly true of my right hon. Friend’s time in office, but I believe it is also true of previous Secretaries of State under the previous Government. It is up to the IRP. I know of one example of my right hon. Friend requesting that the IRP respond within a certain time frame, but that was on a single issue. It is possible, with regard to the Safe and Sustainable review, that a number of referrals could be made by different OSCs in relation to the recommendations—I do not know but it is a possibility.

[Stuart Andrew]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Burns]

I will give way once more, but then I will have to make progress, because I only have 10 minutes to respond to the whole debate.

[Stuart Andrew]

Will the independent panel have the power to request all the documentation that the Safe and Sustainable review and the JCPCT have been looking at? Will everything be released so that it can look at the evidence in detail?

[Mr Burns]

The IRP?

[Stuart Andrew]

Yes.

[Mr Burns]

I think I can assure my hon. Friend that the IRP will have available to it all the evidence, in all shapes and forms, to help it to form its final opinion of the complaint referred to it. I hope that that reassures him. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough and the hon. Member for Leicester South that the same can apply with regard to the decision about ECMO. I have no doubt that Leicester city council will give consideration to that.

I shall briefly respond to the remaining issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) made several extremely interesting suggestions. Some of them might not be in line with current Government thinking, but I shall certainly refer her ideas and views to the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), who deals with our alcohol strategy. Similarly, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) raised an important issue, and again I will refer it to the Under-Secretary of State.

The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) mentioned the potential reconfiguration at St Helier hospital. As she will know, the proposals are still being worked on. There has not yet been a consultation process, but the decisions have been taken locally by the local NHS. I trust that, if and when there is a consultation process, she will get involved.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Absolutely.

[Mr Burns]

I thought she would say that. That is very good. After the consultation, the due processes of reconfiguration can move forward.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) asked about Avastin. A study is being done into its effects. We are following that closely, and when we find out more we will consider the matter and potentially reach a judgment, but I cannot give him any commitments at the moment.

Finally, I turn to my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel). I am sorry to hear about the problems that she highlighted on behalf of her constituents. I do not want to disappoint her, because she is my neighbour and I have to live with her on a weekly basis, but given the background to the case, I think it is a matter for the GP practice as the employer of the GP whom she mentioned. I encourage her to engage with Mid Essex PCT, even though it has no direct powers or role in this matter, and the clinical commissioning group in the mid-Essex area, because they are best placed to address the concerns about the provision of services for her constituents, which I know she is fearless in defending, protecting and promoting.