Agenda item

The Chair to lead a discussion on the current progress of the Congenital Heart Services Review being undertaken by NHS England.

The last update report is attached and can be accessed at the following link.  The link will also allow access to previous update reports.

http://www.england.nhs.uk/category/publications/blogs/john-holden/

HealthWatch Leicester, Heartlink, University Hospitals Leicester NHS Trust, Keep The Beat, and representatives of East Midlands Health Scrutiny have been invited to contribute to the update.

The Chair led a discussion on the current progress of the Congenital Heart Services Review being undertaken by NHS England.

The last update report from NHS England had been circulated to members of the Commission prior to the meeting.  The link below will allow access to this and previous update reports.

http://www.england.nhs.uk/category/publications/blogs/john-holden/

Details of the current expected timetable for the review, together with a briefing paper issued by NHS England (1 August 2014), a report to the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust Board (UHL) (31 July 2014) on the future provision of Paediatric Surgery at UHL and various comments received from interested parties on the review, together with a press article dated 5 August 2014 was circulated to everyone at the meeting.

The Chair stated that he wished to review the current progress as he was uncomfortable with the recent comments and concerns expressed by some of those involved in the review.  The Chief Executive of UHL had recently made an announcement that the Trust were considering a proposal to move some children’s services from the Glenfield Hospital site to the Royal Infirmary site so that all paediatric services were co-located on one site.  The Chair commented that this announcement had been unexpected.

The Chair also commented that some comments had been made to suggest that the principles of the Safe and Sustainable review were being re-introduced gradually as a view was emerging that there should be fewer and larger centres and the virtues of centralising services had been made in number of statements relating to trauma centre and specialist stroke care units.  It was also noted that the UHL Board had approved the recommendations in the report at its meeting on 31 July 2014.

Kate Shields, Director of Strategy, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust made the following comments:-

·         The current expected timetable for the review had only been presented to everyone recently.

·         There had been a statement in the minutes of a recent meeting of the review’s Clinical Advisory Panel (CAP) that the co-location of children’s services was more important than the number of operations carried out by centres. This statement had not been expected.

·         Following recent discussions with the review team, there appeared to be more latitude in relation to compiling the number of operations performed by each centre.

·         There had been useful discussions with Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital in relation to the review.

·         There appeared to be more co-operation and trust between Clinicians reflecting the open and transparent manner in which the review was being conducted.

·         Clinicians at UHL had been considering the co-location of paediatric services on one site for some time, but the statement in the CAP minutes had made the Trust look at the issue more quickly.  It was proposed to take a further report on the feasibility of the proposal to the September Trust Board meeting.

·         Centres such as Blackpool, Papworth and Brighton seemed to fit well with the proposed standards on their own but not in relation to transition services.  Glenfield, however, could be a lead on transition care interventions from paediatric to adult services.

·         It could be feasible to have children’s and adults congenital services on one site.

·         It was currently hard for Glenfield to get to the level of 500 operations per year within the next 12 years based upon the current criteria.  It could get to 345 operations a year in the next 3 years.

·         NHS England were being asked to consider commissioning at local population level.  If this was the case then Glenfield could get to 500 operations per year quite quickly.

·         Great Ormond Street Hospital held consulting clinics all over the country and patients from these clinics counted towards their operating figures.  Patients in Northamptonshire were now travelling to London for specialist services instead of Southampton as previously.  It would be helpful if NHS England allowed more leeway for these patients to be able to be counted into Glenfield’s figures.

·         UHL were working closely with Leicester University, DeMontfort University and Loughborough University on research projects related to sport and exercise to maintain health and there was Big Lottery Bid for a project to have better life chances.

·         There were some opportunities arising from the review for Glenfield to also look at the possibility of establishing vascular-cardiac or cardiac- thoracic specialist units. 

In response to a question on the co-location of children’s services on one site, the Director of Strategy commented that this only related to acute services and not community services such as CAMHS which were provided by the Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust.  The Better Care Together programme, could however, be a suitable vehicle for working with Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust to develop a model of care for young people that were not hospital based services. 

RESOLVED:

1)    That the current progress on the review be noted and the Director of Strategy’s offer to brief the Deputy City Mayor on the review be accepted.   

2)    That the Council should assist the Trust wherever possible to engage with the community and community groups on any proposal put forward by the Trust.