Children's congenital cardiac services

The future of the UK's Children's Congenital Cardiac Services has been in question since the Bristol Royal Infrmary Inquiry (Kennedy, 2001) and the subsequent Paediatric and Congenital Cardiac Services Review (DH, 2003). In 2009, the ‘Safe and Sustainable Children's Cardiac Services’ national stakeholder engagement event, concluded that the configuration of children's heart surgery services in England were not sustainable (NHS Specialised Commissioning Group (NSCG), 2009: 5). The NSCG proposed a new model of provision for children's heart surgery in England and Wales with fewer, larger specialist surgical centres (NSCG, 2010). Ultimately, it is anticipated, that this measure will improve the outcomes for children and young people but one of the consequences of this proposal will be longer transfer distances for ambulance crews tasked with managing very sick children with congenital cardiac disease.