healthmedicinet

• Unit forced to close last week after data emerged showing high death rates
• Questions have since been raised about reliability of mortality data
• Local MPs criticised ‘hasty’ decision to close the unit
  
• Raises ‘serious concerns’ over the judgement of those who made decision

By
Jenny Hope and Louise Eccles

PUBLISHED:

02:36 EST, 5 April 2013

|

UPDATED:

16:05 EST, 5 April 2013

Child heart surgery is to be resumed at Leeds General Infirmary amid claims of a ‘shambles’ over the decision to suspend operations on safety grounds.

Parents, MPs and campaigners have demanded to know how the troubled unit came to be closed over safety concerns – only to re-open within a week.

Some claimed the decision had been ‘reckless’ – while the NHS and trust bosses maintained they were forced to act after seeing data that suggested death rates were double the national average.

Children’s heart surgery is set to resume at Leeds General Infirmary after days of uncertainty over its future. It was closed last week after figures emerged suggesting high death rates

But last night worrying new evidence emerged of the problems at the unit.

• A couple claimed doctors at the unit wrongly told them they should
  abort their baby because it would be too sick to survive – only for them
  to discover the problem could be treated elsewhere,
• A mother told how her daughter’s life was saved by heart surgery –
  after doctors at Leeds had claimed ‘nothing could be done’ for her,
• A mother whose seven-year-old daughter died at the unit died last year demanded a fresh investigation into her case.

All child operations at the Leeds unit were halted on Maundy Thursday
following the release of NHS figures suggesting its death rate was
double that of other centres, and a ‘constellation’ of issues.

But a decision was reached at a summit between Leeds Teaching Hospitals
NHS Trust, NHS England and other organisations on Thursday to aim to
re-open the unit early next week.

Some parents of children treated at the unit, as well as MPs and
campaigners, have welcomed the news. But others said questions still
needed to be answered about the problems at the unit.

Emma Ethelstone, 28, and John Sauve, 37, say they were left ‘devastated’
by the way they were treated at Leeds.  The couple were told by doctors
at the unit that their longed-for baby daughter had such severe
congenital heart disease that they had no choice but to abort her.

Enlarge

 

Conflict: Sir Bruce Keogh’s decision to close the unit came just 24 hours after Mrs Justice Nicola Davies ruled further consultation was necessary

LEEDS: THE LONG-RUNNING BATTLE TO KEEP HEART SURGERY

Leeds General Infirmary is at the centre of a long-running row over the future of children’s heart services at the hospital.

The NHS
announced last July it wanted to close three units and keep seven open, the idea being to concentrate specialist services in
fewer but larger centres that would give a higher quality of care for
child heart patients.

Those currently chosen to stay open are at Bristol, Birmingham,
Liverpool, Newcastle, Southampton and two London centres.

Facing closure are units at Leicester’s Glenfield Hospital, London’s Royal Brompton and the Leeds site.

This means patients in Yorkshire would be being forced to travel to Liverpool or Newcastle for treatment – a 150 or 200-mile round trip respectively.

There is
huge support for keeping child heart surgery in the Yorkshire and nearly
600,000 people signed a petition against closure of the unit, oragnised by the group Save Our Surgery (SOS).

Last month, a High Court judge derailed plans to close the unit because of the ‘secretive’ approach of NHS chiefs.

Mrs
Justice Davies backed claims by SOS that
the consultation process to decide which units should be axed was unfair
because details of how a panel of experts marked individual hospitals
were kept secret.

Last week, she ruled the decision was ‘unfair and legally flawed’.

But
within 24 hours, Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of NHS England, had
travelled to Leeds to suspend congenital heart surgery after data
emerged suggesting it had a death rate twice the national average.

He said the figures were among a ‘constellation of reasons’ behind the suspension.

Miss Ethelstone – who was 26 weeks pregnant – was told ‘not to Google’ her baby’s condition as it wouldn’t be helpful.

When the couple ignored this advice and looked up the condition on the
internet, they were shocked to discover that there was in fact an
operation that could help.

Miss Ethelstone then emailed every hospital in England specialising in
complex heart conditions – and the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle said
they could offer the surgery.

Their baby daughter Imogen-Rose was born there on March 5 and given open
heart surgery four days later. She will need further operations but she
is now a healthy one-month-old.

Miss Ethelstone said: ‘We felt like a piece of meat on a conveyer belt.
It didn’t seem like they were talking about my little girl – they kept
calling her the foetus.’

But when they went to Newcastle, medics had a totally different attitude, she said.

‘They gave us hope. I just want to advise other expectant mothers to always seek a 2nd 3rd 4th opinion.’

Helen Burton, 39, is among those calling for a full investigation into
deaths at the hospital. She lost her only child, seven-year-old Eve,
last March after an operation at Leeds to rectify a congenital heart
defect.

After Eve’s death, Miss Burton complained to the hospital about her
daughter’s care, including why the operation was delayed until Eve was
seven, when the average age for such a procedure is apparently four.

She
also says she was not fully briefed on either the risks involved, or
exactly what went wrong during the surgery.

Responding to the news that the unit is to resume operations she said:
‘It seems back-to-front to me to announce it will re-open before they
have had assurances that the unit is safe. This is too important to be
rushed.’

Greg Mulholland, Liberal Democrat MP for Leeds North West, who has
campaigned to keep the unit after its closure was recommended in a
nationwide review, called on Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to launch an
investigation into how the hospital’s closure had been handled.

He said: ‘I’m afraid the communication from NHS England has been woeful
and the handling has been deeply questionable, and indeed the motivation
behind the decision in the first place is something that I think people
want to get to the bottom of.’

Parents had criticised the timing of the unit’s suspension, which came
just 24 hours after a High Court judge ruled that a decision-making
process to close it as part of an England-wide reorganisation of
services was ‘legally flawed’.

Sharon Cheng, of the Save Our Surgery group, which ran the campaign to
save children’s heart surgery at Leeds, said: ‘Many children are reliant
on the Leeds unit for urgent or on-going treatment, so the sooner
normal service can be resumed, the better.’

But Anne Keatley-Clarke, chief executive of the Children’s Heart
Federation, said families needed full disclosure on the investigations
that had taken place because they were still ‘very worried’ about their
children and frightened about raising concerns.

She said parents who had raised concerns in public had been subject to harassment and bullying.

The hospital is at the centre of a long-running row over the future of its children’s heart services

Ian Dalton, deputy chief executive and chief operating officer of NHS
England, said: ‘The risk summit concluded that surgery could restart at
the beginning of next week, subject to independent validation of the
clinical data and an external review of clinical governance processes.

‘We expect this work to be completed over the next few days and a conclusion reached early next week.’

A spokesman for Leeds Teaching Hospitals said: ‘We cannot comment on
individual cases but we would be very happy to talk to families if they
would like to contact the hospital to discuss any concerns.’

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Me NE bit of England “would I risk my child in Leeds. No thank you”. I wouldn’t either and I lived in Leeds for 20 years! I was raised in Newcastle hence why I’m backing the Freeman all the way for me as I trust the Freeman far more than I do the LGI.

–

Me
,

Halifax,
05/4/2013 19:55

Report abuse

This hospital saved my life in 1962 when as a five year old I underwent pioneering heart surgery for a rare heart defect.i have enormous faith in the Children’s unit and the heart surgeons and staff.

–

Jude
,

Nottingham, United Kingdom,
05/4/2013 19:39

Report abuse

Same staff, same surgeons, would I risk my child in Leeds. No thank you

–

Me NE bit of England
,

Newcastle,
05/4/2013 17:11

Report abuse

Just watched the latest update on this fiasco on BBC News. Did NHS England put David Nicholson up for interview – you bet they didn’t. Did they put Bruce Keogh up for interview – nope of course they didnt. They put up Ian Dalton who is leaving in the next couple of weeks to take up the post of President of BT Healthcare. How convenient the Department of Death puts forward a manager who just happens to be leaving soon whilst Nicholson and Keogh go to ground…..and they talk about transparency and candour – they are all a joke

–

Time for revolution
,

Stockton, United Kingdom,
05/4/2013 17:08

Report abuse

So Hunt agrees with the closure and the reopening.Is there anything he wo`nt agree with to SAVE HIS THICK SKIN and produce more effort to PRIVATISE The NHS.What about the CHILDREN who needed care but as with Adam Smith THEY are NOT IMPORTANT to this WEASEL.

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DOWNBUTNOTOUT
,

LIVERPOOL, United Kingdom,
05/4/2013 16:07

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To close any establishment, hospital, school, prison, due to “poor performance” is ludicrous. It can NEVER be the building! It can only mean, if the facts are true (which is not always so) it will be due to just a few of the staff or management. THEY are the ones who should be sorted out! But mainly, we know, it is usually just a devious political ploy!

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Peter
,

Sutton, United Kingdom,
05/4/2013 15:03

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Now, if a family has a dangerously ill child who MAY benefit from a heart operation – a hospital may refuse on the basis that if the child died it would increase their failure average. Operations might now be done only if they have a good chance of success.

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Christine
,

Co. Antrim,
05/4/2013 14:14

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This just seems indicative of the way the People’s Republic of NHS is run right now. Nicholson oversees the unnecessary deaths of 1,200 and KEEPS his job and knighthood. This muppet, Keogh, high handedly decides to close on a spurious pretext, and what will happen to this courageous knight? Yep, NOTHING. There seems to be no accountability and no moral compass whatsoever in the current NHS management. Disgusting.

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Lordbergkamp
,

Different planet, United Kingdom,
05/4/2013 13:50

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The people I am really sorry for are the doctors, nursing and ancillary staff who may have their reputations and job prospects blighted by this ridiculous action by the man with no shame. No hospital service should be closed down until it is established, beyond any possibility of doubt, that it is not treating patients properly. Surely the correct course of action would be a discreet inquiry, over a number of years, to see if double the number of children were dying?

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Kerry Livermore
,

London, United Kingdom,
05/4/2013 13:32

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It’s blatantly obvious why Newcastle was chosen over Leeds – because those in the seats of power on the NHS Commissioning Board include a large proportion of people from Newcastle – Ian Dalton (now left to work for BT Healthcare), Jim Easton (now left to work for Price Waterhouse Cooper), David Flory, Richard Barker. I’m not aware of anyone from Leeds who has a seat at this exalted table

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Time for revolution
,

Stockton, United Kingdom,
05/4/2013 13:08

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