The impassioned letter they sent to Ministers

ON THURSDAY, NHS England will decide the fate of the country’s most important specialist hospital for heart disease. It will rule on whether London’s Royal Brompton Hospital is fit to continue treating adults and children with congenital heart disease. If it decides to withdraw the service it will render the hospital unviable.

As two London surgeons and a grateful long-term cardiac and respiratory patient at the Brompton, we ask: why would anyone want to dismantle the highest quality heart service in the country? The reason is that NHS England is determined to pursue a review of congenital cardiac services that dates back to the 2001 Kennedy inquiry into the Bristol baby heart deaths disaster in which lives were lost because doctors were not being checked. But there has been a transformation in practice since then. In the view of many doctors, this is now a ‘review seeking a problem’.

The Brompton is threatened because the review dictates that paediatric congenital heart surgery should be provided only in hospitals where a wide range of other specialist services such as gastroenterology and general surgery are located on the same site. This is sensible and fair – but it is not being interpreted in a sensible and fair manner.

As a specialist heart and lung hospital, the Brompton delivers a co-located paediatric service in partnership with neighbouring Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and the Royal Marsden Hospital. This partnership has existed for many years, and a wealth of support is available between these sites. Only one conclusion seems possible – that the standards on co-location have been defined in such a way as to deliberately result in the dismantling of the services at the Brompton. This would be an act of unforgivable folly.

We urge Ministers to intervene and save the most important heart disease hospital in Britain.