Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether the Congenital Clinical Reference Group which advised the Clinical Advisory Panel leading the NHS Review into congenital heart disease services advised that the co-location of pediatric services should reflect the availability of services and that those could be co-located on different, by closed sites.

The new standards for congenital heart disease services were initially drafted by the Standards Group, which was convened for that purpose, and not by the Clinical Reference Group (CRG). This was because work on the standards started before the formation of NHS England and the CRG system.

The draft standards, prepared by the Standards Group and considered by the Clinical Advisory Panel, listed fewer paediatric specialties in the category that ‘must’ be co-located on the same hospital site with paediatric cardiac services and more in the category that ‘should’ be co-located on the same hospital site than in the final standards as agreed by the NHS England Board.

The Standards Group did not advise the Clinical Advisory Panel that the standards should reflect the existing availability of services. It has always been recognised that the standards should describe how services should ideally be set up rather than how they currently exist.