Hospital set to stop children’s ops after watchdog concerns
ABIRMINGHAM hospital is to stop carrying out operations on children and transfer its work to specialist units at the Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
The Northfield-based Royal Orthopaedic Hospital (ROH) has been prompted to stop paediatric care following concerns of inconsistent care raised by the official health watchdog, the Care Quality Commission.
During 2016/17 the hospital carried out 1,506 operations on children, both through in-patient and day stay surgery and the vast majority of those children are from Birmingham or the wider West Midlands region. Already some surgery on young children with complex needs is carried out by ROH surgeons at the Children’s Hospital where there are wider support services available on site. The ROH has now launched a consultation with regular patients, staff and nearby hospitals over the way to transfer the workload to other hospitals.
Birmingham City Council health scrutiny committee chairman Coun John Cotton said: “We know that concerns about the consistency of pediatric surgery have been raised at the hospital.
“We really want to understand what the impact will be on patients and what arrangements are being put in place for the transfer.”
In a briefing note to the commmittee, which was due to meet as the Post went to press, the ROH says it was asked to make improvements following an inspection by the CQC last year.
The Hospital states: “The Trust has undertaken a significant amount of work and investment to meet these recommendations, and progress has continued to be made.
“However, recent external reviews have reiterated that paediatric inpatient surgery would be better delivered in a hospital setting with access to extensive centralised care facilities at all times.”
“The Board has made its decision to cease paediatric surgery at ROH after careful consideration and in the best interests of children to ensure services are sustainable into the future.
“Patients and their families can be assured that there will be no immediate changes for patients waiting for surgery as although there are long waiting times, current services for children at the ROH remain safe.”
Hospital statement