Children’s heart surgery review
26 March 2012
“On 7 November 2011, Mr Justice Owen stated that Royal Brompton’s challenge to the consultation on children’s heart services succeeded on the grounds that the consultation process was unfair to the Trust: ‘…the unfairness being of such a magnitude as to lead to the conclusion that the process went radically wrong’. He concluded: ‘…in my judgment the consultation exercise was unlawful, and must therefore be quashed’.
In response to the appeal against this decision lodged by the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts, led by Sir Neil McKay, the Trust has lodged grounds which include:
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It was unlawful that a three London centre option was not consulted upon. Options that included keeping the three centres open at least scored as well as one or more of the options that were consulted upon, and in fact were better placed than the ‘two London centre options’ to achieve the ideal number of operations per centre.
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The ‘research and innovation’ score, which led to Royal Brompton being knocked out of the ‘London race’, misled users about the importance and quality of the research carried out by the Trust and rendered the consultation document unfair.
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The participation of doctors from the two other London centres, Great Ormond Street and Evelina, on the review’s steering group and the refusal to allow Royal Brompton experts to join them, was unfair.
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Deliverability: Royal Brompton’s children’s Intensive Care Unit would be closed if children’s heart surgery stops, yet no plans have been made for where the hospital’s intensive care patients will go, there has been no consideration of, or consultation about, the hospital’s respiratory patients who need intensive care, and although there would be less impact at both other London hospitals, this was not reflected in the scoring.”
One of the Trust’s greatest concerns has been the needless anxiety that the Safe & Sustainable review has caused to patients, their families and NHS staff, but the Trust board was of the view that it could not sit back and watch while flawed plans to dismantle our specialist children’s services were introduced by bureaucrats, plans which we know will have a harmful effect on patient care. It is a source of deep regret that legal challenge was the only option left open to us."
Some of our media coverage
Media coverage of the legal action by Royal Brompton Hospital
Coverage also appeared on BBC News (regional), Radio 4, LBC, ITV News (regional), over 100 regional newspaper websites and several major regional papers on 15 and 16 July 2011.
Media coverage of the review and growing opposition to recommendations
Media coverage of the public consultation events
