Bid to keep city's child heart staff

The Government is currently reviewing the future of children’s heart surgery across the country.

It has recommended the number of centres carrying out operations is cut from 11 to five, with larger centres carrying out more operations.

Four options have been put forward by the NHS Safe and Sustainable review, but Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital, where four babies died last year, does not feature in any of the plans.

Experts fear paediatric experts will leave the city to find work, and other supporting services at the hospital, which rely on their knowledge, will suffer as a result.

And at a meeting of the Oxfordshire joint health overview and scrutiny committee (HOSC), councillors and health experts decided to support a plan which would see Oxford forge a link with Southampton and bid to become one of the super centres.

All surgery would be carried out at Southampton and Oxford would keep its supporting care, such as the Silver Star special care baby unit.

Ted Baker, medical director at the ORH trust, said: “It is about sustainability and making sure we have surgeons available 24/7.”

The committee agreed to initially support the partnership with Southampton at a meeting on Thursday, although HOSC chairman Peter Skolar labelled the 234-page Safe and Sustainable review “a shambles”.

He said: “This is the worst consultation document I have ever seen out of the NHS.

“And I have been working in the NHS for more than 40 years.”

Parents of children treated at the JR also expressed their disappointment with the way the review had been handled.

They claim key questions were left unanswered at a consultation meeting at the Kassam Stadium earlier this month.

Mum Yvonne Thomas, whose son Ryan had major surgery at the hospital, said: “No statistics have been presented on measuring mortality and morbidity, waiting times, or assessments of risks.

“Why have these statistics not been included in the process?”