Proposals for Congenital Heart Disease Services
In July 2016, NHS England published a set of proposals regarding the future commissioning of congenital heart disease (CHD) services for children and adults. They describe the actions which NHS England proposes to take in order to ensure a consistent standard of care for CHD patients across the country, for now and for the future.
NHS England proposes to do this by implementing national service standards at every hospital that provides CHD services. The effect of the proposals, if implemented, will be that some hospitals will carry out more CHD surgery and catheter procedures, while others, which do not meet the relevant standards, will stop doing this work.
NHS England is currently providing information about their proposals, and the potential impact they may have, if implemented, on the delivery of services, and seeking views about the plans. Further information can be found here.
This issue will be of interest to a number of health scrutiny committees, who may wish to be formally consulted by NHS England under health scrutiny legislation. CfGS is able to provide general advice about scrutiny of service reconfigurations – get in touch with Tim Gilling at tim.gilling@cfgs.org.uk or 07876 710 046.
CfGS is also running a health scrutiny masterclass on 16 May 2017 that will include a session on service reconfiguration (although it won’t tackle CHD in detail).
About the Author: Tim Gilling
Tim is a Director at the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny, leads on health and social care and oversees our work in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
