INCLUDE YOUR ADDRESS
Dear INSERT NAME OF YOUR MP
Subject: Royal Brompton’s cardiac and lung services
I am writing to you today, as one of your constituents, as I am very concerned about the proposal to stop the provision of essential heart and lung services at the Royal Brompton & Harefield Foundation Trust (RBHT), London. I understand that the closure of such services will impact over 14,000 patients, including both children and adults suffering from a range of cardiac and lung diseases.
The decision by NHS England to decommission congenital heart disease (CHD) services at RBHT is because they believe that hospitals offering CHD services must now also have certain other children’s services based on the same site – services such as general surgery and gastroenterology (treatment of digestive problems). RBHT currently offers these services in partnership with Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
The proposed closure is targeted at putting an end to the award winning CHD service due to there being a lack of permanent specialist stomach or kidney expertise for CHD patients. Despite this, the RBHT is still able to ensure that such additional services are provided having partnered with Chelsea and Westminster Hospital to ensure continuation of care. For this reason the claims by NHS England managers have been disputed by a number of parties, that there is a need to close heart and lung services.
Teams at RBHT carried out more CHD procedures last year than any other centre in the country. For the past ten years, the experts at RBHT have undertaken over 500 congenital surgical operations each year (paediatric and adult) and during this time their results have met or exceeded all the standards defined by the regulators. Since 2009, they have consistently been one of the five best-performing centres in terms of mortality rates.
As a ADJUST AS APPROPRIATE – PARENT OF A CHILD OR PATIENT RELYING ON THE SERVICES OFFERED AT RBHT I am concerned about the planned closure of CHD services due to the impact that this will have on the care that I/we receive. I am also concerned about the impact that this would have on the provision of care for the diverse range patients at RBHT.
I believe that because of the ‘law of unintended consequences’ this would have a direct impact on the care of the all of the other patients at RBHT, including the respiratory patients, as cardiac services for children do not exist in a vacuum.
I believe that the entire paediatric unit would no longer be able to operate as:-
· Without children’s cardiac surgery the hospital’s paediatric intensive care unit would close immediately, as the number of patients needing it would not be enough to make it financially viable.
· Without paediatric anaesthesia and intensive care, the life-saving work of the hospital’s respiratory teams would also cease - both anaesthesia and intensive care areneeded for many respiratory procedures, such as high-risk bronchoscopy.
· The detrimental impact on RBHT’s adult respiratory unit, would soon be seen, as 70-80% of adult patients’ progress from the paediatric service.
The changes would also affect the health needs of over 150 children with Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia (PCD) as the hospital hosts the largest service for children with PCD in the country. This is a rare condition (affects 1 in 15000) and without appropriate, specialist and diligent care patients it can result in patients having a very poor quality of life. Any re-configuration of the hospital services therefore must include a detailed plan for the break-up and re-distribution of services such as the PCD diagnostic and management service (one of four centres in the UK) and the dispersal and re-location of its expert teams of staff.I am extremely worried that if these changes take place that the level of knowledge and expertise at the RBHT with regards to PCD will be disseminated and this will ultimately affect the long term care of all patients with this rare condition.
I thank you for taking the time to read this – please can you write to the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt MP, to request that he halt the public consultation until more reasonable plans have been produced.
Thank you in advance for your efforts and I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely
INSERT NAME