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Yorkhill chosen to become Scotland's single centre for child heart surgery
16/09/1999
Glasgow's Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill is to become Scotland's single centre for children's heart surgery in the next century, Scottish Health and Community Care Minister Susan Deacon announced today.
The decision comes after an exhaustive process to decide which of the two current units in Edinburgh's Sick Kids and Glasgow's Yorkhill should deliver future services. A process undertaken as a result of recognition by the clinicians themselves that future paediatric cardiac surgery in Scotland should be concentrated on one site.
Ms Deacon said:
"This has been an extremely hard decision to make. Both hospitals provide an excellent standard of service. However, it is a decision that simply has to be made if we are to continue to provide children and parents in Scotland with the highest possible standards of care.
"All the clinicians concerned agree on the need to concentrate the service on one site. The numbers of children requiring this type of treatment are falling - now just 300 children each year. That is simply not enough to sustain on two sites the specialised skills and services involved. This decision has been taken in the best interests of patients.
"Yorkhill and the Sick Kids in Edinburgh are both superb facilities which inspire loyalty and affection within the NHS and in the wider communities they serve. Both indeed could have developed into the sort of world-class, full-time paediatric surgical facilities that must become our model after the well-documented tragedies at Bristol.
"But Yorkhill already deals with nearly two-thirds of these paediatric cardiac surgery cases. Yorkhill has a wider range of services and facilities, with others about to come on-stream. And Yorkhill is more accessible to a greater number of potential patients from deprived areas.
"Today's decision should not be seen in isolation. This is the first in a number of decisions which will need to be made in the coming years about specialist children's services. Nobody is trying to create a 'Great Ormond Street of the North' - at Yorkhill or anywhere else.
"We must also remember the importance of children's services outwith the central belt. We need Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh to work together to provide a full range of services which cover the needs of all Scotland. That means keeping them all viable by sharing specialist treatments and procedures between them. The Scottish Executive is actively addressing the need for a new body capable of adopting a Scotland-wide perspective on these matters. We will also be working with clinicians and managers in Edinburgh to ensure that the public concerns they have raised over intensive care issues are addressed.
"Finally, and with a heavy heart, I have to state that the very public rivalry which seems to have been encouraged between the Glasgow and Edinburgh options has been very damaging to patients. Scaremongering, whispering campaigns and turf wars are not the way to modernise services for the benefit of patients. Politicians, administrators, and clinicians have a duty and a responsibility to explain and inform change to patients - especially change which is universally recognised as being to the benefit of our children.
"I hope all those concerned will now unite behind the decision and work together to develop the best possible services for children across Scotland."
BACKGROUND
1. Coming to this difficult decision has been a long and exhaustive process. The Executive (formerly the Scottish Office) commissioned work from the National Services Division focussed solely on the existing paediatric cardiac services. That took advice not just from within Scotland, but from experts across the UK and in Scandinavia, where they have already been through the same process. They also consulted users of both services. The relevant Health Boards then provided detailed advice on the impact the decision might have on other services. Each hospital and Trust was visited. Both Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities' medical faculties were consulted.
And finally, the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Executive of the NHS in Scotland personally reviewed all the evidence and met representatives of each centre.
2. This work is independent of that being carried out by Professor Ross Lorimer's Coronary Heart Disease task force.
3. The Scottish Executive will now work with the two Trusts to identify the next steps in ensuring a smooth transition of services to Yorkhill.
News Release: SE0626/99
16 September, 1999