Children’s Heart Surgery

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

That is what I absolutely want to do. One huge frustration for those on both sides of the House has been how the process has dragged on. If I could have come to the House today with a detailed timetable, I would have. Although we had internal access to the report before today while I considered its findings and reached a judgment, we believed that it was necessary for external stakeholders to see the report and give their view of how the timetable should proceed. That is why I have given NHS England until the end of July to come back with that timetable.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

The Health Secretary is absolutely right that parents in my constituency have found this process deeply destabilising. Although they also want to see quality, they felt that their concerns about building up a good relationship with their medical teams and about accessibility and co-located services were simply dismissed. Will the Health Secretary assure me that that will not be the case in the future, and will he look more closely at the networking solution we have in Oxford and Southampton, which strikes a good balance between having a quality site further away and providing aftercare in an accessible site with trusted medical teams?

[Mr Hunt]

That is a very interesting thought. My hon. Friend will be pleased to note that the IRP report states that the whole care pathway, not just the surgery on its own, needs to be considered when we make this very difficult decision. I agree with her that this has been a very distressing process for every family involved and although we are suspending the process today, we have a responsibility to be honest with people. At the end of the process, there will be a difficult decision to take and we will honestly do our duty as Members of this House.