National review of children's heart surgery

The Safe and Sustainable national review of children's congenital heart surgery| is expected to conclude in the autumn of 2011. The review aims to reduce the number of centres performing children's heart surgery from ten to six or seven.

During a four month period of public consultation, the Southampton centre has been overwhelmed by the support it has received from professionals in some of the world's leading centres as well as from patients,  the public, MPs and councils across southern England.

On 1 July 2011 the Trust submitted its own response to the review.|

An independent report released on 24 August| found that quality is the public’s top priority when it comes to shaping the future of children’s congenital heart services.

In the Trust's official response to this report, Dr James Gnanapragasam, consultant paediatric cardiologist, said: “The Safe and Sustainable consultation report highlights the level of support for option B not just in the south of England and Channel Islands, but from other parts of the UK.

“Parents and patients are understandably going to have strong feelings for their own hospital but if you look beyond this option B is the most favoured across the country and this makes us all confident that children’s heart surgery will stay in Southampton.

“The public have confirmed that quality outweighs all other criteria when it comes to deciding the future of this service and as the second-highest performing centre we are pleased to see this has been reflected in the report.

 

“We would like to thank all those that supported Southampton throughout this review and look forward to hearing the outcome.”

• If you have any questions about the review please contact the Trust's communications team on 023 8079 4853.