Families welcome review of Leeds hospital heart unit closure
EAST Yorkshire families have welcomed a review of the decision to close the children's heart surgery unit in Leeds.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has ordered the review into the move to close three children's heart surgery units at Leeds General Infirmary, Glenfield Hospital, in Leicester, and the Royal Brompton, in Chelsea, west London.
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Long battle: Becki Quick and her son Harvey. Picture: Peter Harbour
As previously reported in the Mail, a number of families across East Yorkshire use the unit in Leeds.
Mr Hunt has asked the Independent Reconfiguration Panel (IRP) to carry out the review.
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The panel will decide by February whether it believes the recommendations to close the units will streamline paediatric heart services.
Becki Quick's son Harvey, 4, had surgery to correct a hole in his heart and reroute veins that were in the wrong place last year.
She has campaigned to keep the Leeds unit open and is delighted by the move.
Becki, of Hessle, said: "I welcome the review and I am thrilled to bits.
"I have always stood by the Leeds unit and firmly believe it should remain open.
"It is very important to the people of East Yorkshire.
"It has been a long battle to get to this point."
Becki hopes Harvey is okay now but accepts other families will struggle if they have to travel to Newcastle for treatment.
She said: "Harvey is absolutely smashing but there are no guarantees and there may come a time when he needs further treatment.
"It would be a nightmare if we had to travel to Newcastle, particularly if it was a 9am appointment.
"God forbid if there was an emergency.
"I hope it will not affect us now but there are plenty of other families in East Yorkshire who will suffer if the unit in Leeds closes."
Earlier this month, Save Our Surgery (SOS) said it has filed for permission for a judicial review against the decision made by the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts (JCPCT) to close the unit.
Battles have been fought across the country to keep all the three units open.
The JCPCT has promised to cooperate with the review.
Chairman Sir Neil McKay said: "We will work closely with the Independent Reconfiguration Panel over the coming months to assist the panel's review of the JCPCT's decision in whatever way possible.
"The decision on the future of children's heart services, which was welcomed by Royal Colleges of medicine, doctors, nurses and national charities, was made after carefully considering a number of factors, which included evidence on patient travel times, transferring ECMO services and demand on surgical services.
"The IRP has noted the JCPCT's concern that the process of challenging the decision risks further uncertainty for children's heart services in England."
Comments
by Heart12
Wednesday, October 24 2012, 9:50AM
“It is great that this new review will finally be carried out. Really hope that this one is impartial and the scores are looked at because everyone in Yorkshire and Humberside knows that these are wrong. Those running the hospital services and making the decisions should use their ears more to listen to what the people are saying and then they would understand why no one wants to go back to a standalone unit. The review was commissioned following the Bristol report which stated that childrens heart surgery should be carried out in a Childrens Hospital with proper high dependency care in place together with all other childrens experts on hand.
Everyone needs to back Save Our Surgery and ask how will the children of our area get to hospital in bad weather. Air transport is incredibly expensive relative to road travel the NHS review team have stated that air travel is not an option. The Yorkshire air ambulance service is a charity, not funded by the NHS. Is it reasonable or likely that this charity will pick up the pieces of an NHS decision that has not been thought through? Also, air travel would not be possible in many of the cases where roads are closed. Air ambulance helicopters are restricted from flying in bad weather and at night.”