Having the best and safest surgery in the NHS for children's heart conditions has to strike a balance between services that are close to home and services with enough specialist expertise to allow the highest standards of care.
Heart surgery for children is complex and becoming even more sophisticated. The NHS is looking at the best way to ensure that:
• Each surgical team does an adequate number of operations a year to achieve the best results
• Units have enough volume of work to train the next generation of surgeons
• There are enough surgeons for proper team working and to provide specialist out of hours care.
This document makes it clear that to sustain current levels of care and to do even better in the future, surgeons treating heart conditions in babies and children must be concentrated in fewer, bigger centres.
As a parent of a child with a heart condition it is vital that your views are heard as this decision will affect not just your family but also many other families going through a similar experience in years to come. As surgeons, our job is to provide the very best quality surgery we can.
The key decision is whether you accept the case for having to travel further to get a better service. We do not underestimate the difficulties you will have to face.
John Black
President, The Royal College of Surgeons of England
