MOSCOW, September 15 (RIA Novosti) – National Health Service (NHS) England has come up with a new reform plan for children's heart surgery facilities, following a decade-long review process, The Guardian reported Monday.
"We need good, sustainable, well-audited services, strong in governance processes. I would hope that having been such a consultative process, this time we will actually reach that goal," Dr. Jackie Cornish, national clinical director for children, young people and transition to adulthood at NHS England, said as quoted by The Guardian.
"I hope everybody will understand that constantly reviewing these services over the past 10 years has led to a level of uncertainty in clinical teams, and at times children and families lacked confidence in services. They all deserve the stability of knowing there is a uniform process with uniform standards for quality to improve outcomes and experiences across the whole life course and treatment pathway," Dr. Cornish said.
Under the new proposals, all 10 hospitals that offer children's heart surgery in England could in theory keep operating, if they meet a new set of standards put forward by NHS England.
According to The Guardian, the standards cover 13 areas including communication with patients and their families, staff standards and skills needed in teams, as well as transition for children moving between child and adult services.
Past plans, which included proposals to close down some children's heart surgery centers at local hospitals led to legal battles. Doctors, backed by families, fought to keep surgery at their own hospitals.
Several reviews into patient care were conducted following concerns about death rates.
NHS England took over the reform process when the independent reconfiguration panel, called in by Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, failed to come up with a sustainable plan, accusing the review team of flawed analysis in June, 2013.
The new reform plan put forward by NHS England follows years of discussions with all the parties involved.
The plan encompasses for the first time adult and children's congenital heart services, and envisages that demand will grow as more children born with heart defects survive and need treatment as adults.
