The fight for Glenfield must go on

The plans to close the children’s heart unit at Glenfield Hospital are a sickening blow for staff, campaigners and the East Midlands alike.

Many parents openly wept when health bosses broke the news towards the end of a five-hour meeting, streamed online, in London.

Hundreds of children across the region, and parts of East Anglia, will now be expected to travel to Birmingham if the plans to close the unit are accepted by the government.

But grave doubts persist on whether the facilities there can be expanded quickly enough to cope with the increased volume of patients.

It is also particularly distressing to learn that the Bristol Children’s Unit, whose continuous and sustained failings during the 1990s prompted the original national clinical review, is being recommended for retention.

The closure, if implemented will have a severe impact on existing heart care for adults at Glenfield. The internationally-renowned Extra-Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) service, based at the hospital and credited with saving the lives of hundreds of children and adults, would be placed at immediate risk.  In turn, such uncertainty will clearly undermine existing high standards of care, as highly-qualified staff with years, even decades, of service seek to move elsewhere.

Meanwhile other regions, who have also lost out under the review, have signalled their determination to continue with their struggle.

All five political groups at Leeds City Council have already indicated their intention to submit an appeal to Health Secretary Andrew Lansley against the plans to close the Children’s Heart Unit at Leeds General Infirmary.

Their immediate response, which has engaged, mobilised and united all sections of the community, has set an example which other authorities in Leicester, Leicestershire and the rest of the East Midlands would do well to follow.

There are legitimate questions to ask about the role of the University Hospitals of Leicester Trust, and whether recent uncertainties about its management and financial planning may have been a factor that counted against Glenfield.

However, now is not the time for detailed public recriminations. Instead, local councils and the Trust must hold urgent talks to consider a co-ordinated response and contemplate their next move in a saga which may yet still have some way left to run.

At present there are many questions, raised during the extensive public consultation process that took place during the review, which remain unanswered. Unless and until they are resolved to the satisfaction of concerned families – whose interests should remain the driving force behind any changes – the question of closing ANY children’s regional heart unit should not arise.

Furthermore, as the recent furores over the budget have shown, the government can be forced to change its mind if the political tide dictates this. With dozens of Tory MPs already indicating a willingness to defend the interests of their communities on this issue, there must be a significant doubt whether the recommendations can survive unscathed.  This gives rise to  the possibility that at least one of the units now under threat could be reprieved.

The campaign to save Glenfield must therefore continue, for the sake of current and future heart patients.