Vocal Voices

Leeds General Infirmary (LGI) won its case in court to avoid the closure of its children's heart surgery unit. That earlier court decision was upheld on Wednesday.

Today the Quality Care Commission (QCC) and NHS England, who voted for the original closure, using illegal means according to the courts, frogmarched into the hospital and demanded the immediate closure of the unit and a review of procedures. A process designed to muckrake.

The message from the QCC and NHS England is clear: Don't ***k with us, we run the NHS and we will do it our way regardless of what the British Courts and the people want.

One of the local MP's has been quoted on Sky news as saying that the clinical director (? some big NHS manager anyway) was up in Leeds the day after the court decision, to virtually force suspension of operations.
It is disgusting; who do these people think they are?

Well, I'm obviously looking in from the outside, not being from your area, but it seems (from the BBC News reporting tonight) there are some figures being bandied around indicating that the death rate in that unit was twice the national average, and that the unit has lost its senior surgeon, the two remaining ones being junior status, and that there was a marked reluctance to refer complex procedures to more specialist centres. Two people, Sir Bruce Keogh (the guy who ordered the closure) said there was "clear blue water" between the death rates at Leeds and other units, while the guy who was responsible for the clandestine release of the mortality data, a Professor Sir Roger Boyle who was interviewed live, said that he felt he had to be a whistleblower especially in the light of everything that's gone on in Mid Staffordshire, and he couldn't have slept easily if he hadn't done what he did.

"With the Easter weekend coming up, I'm afraid I just could not rest without sharing this information and helping Sir Bruce to come to the decision that he did," he said. "We cannot take risks with these children.
"It is better to do a 'safety first' approach and suspend operating for days or weeks - whatever is necessary to get to the absolute truth."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21974053

Yes, but we are being asked to believe that these figures popped up out of nowhere yesterday morning.

They must have been known about for some time, maybe even during the closure process. Why were they not used to justify the proposed closure? Why did they not see daylight at the campaign group's court appearance? Why not at the court of appeal? There are simply so many unanswered questions and an uncomfortable feeling that it was all planned to happen this way.

just playing Devil's Advocate here, but sometimes these units have very high mortality rates because they have surgeons there who are prepared to take on cases that are extremely risky, and might have been turned down elsewhere.....................

This is surely a matter for the medical profession not judges. On the other hand some surgeons do tend to take unnecessary risks either in experimentation or perhaps even in a hurry, leaving vital closures to trainees.

Ped, the reason the issue went before the judges was because it was felt the the review process was a front to rubber stamp a decision that had already been made. That turned out to be partly true and was why the closure was halted.

These new data accusing the hospital of having a higher than average mortality rate, thus forcing a temporary closure, have turned out to be incomplete and statistically manipulated. There is a feeling round here that the Mandarins will use every dirty trick in the book until they get their way and the unit is closed permanently.

Kaz, I do not know if the surgeons here are taking on the more risky patients, but these congenital cases do not come at a fixed rate, they come in waves. There will be times when they are above or below the average and the mortality rates will reflect that. I guess that a unit will look good, bad or average depending on the period looked at.

pederito1 wrote:This is surely a matter for the medical profession not judges.

True but actually these decisions are made by accountants and staff managers. Not the medical professionals...

Hence the games being played right now.

WM I'd say you are spot on. You don't leave your (supposedly), strongest argument out of the court case and then use it to close the unit anyway. That is lies and trickery and there is no other excuse for it.