Hospital suspends heart surgeries
A hospital has decided to temporarily suspend its heart surgery operations on children, after four young patients died in the past three months after they underwent the medical procedure.
The hospital in Oxford said the move was "precautionary" and that there would be an external investigation into the reasons for the deaths, "since such a spate was unusual", the hospital said.
Through the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery in Great Britain and Ireland, cardiac surgeons have pioneered the collection of statistics and data about their activities, right down to the performance of individual surgeons - and all publicly available.
Heart surgery has been described as the most closely documented and analysed medical procedure in Britain. This figure has been reiterated by the hospital, which carries out around 100 heart operations on children every year.
The four young children had congenital heart problems and had been receiving care for some time before their operations. The hospital added that it alone had decided to hold an investigation.
Other patients moved to other hospitals
In the meantime the parents of 26 children who are awaiting heart surgery at the service, would be contacted about the decision to suspend the procedure, and those scheduled for operations would be transferred to another hospital.
No member of staff has been suspended and at present, the hospital was not aware of any complaints from the parents of the deceased.
The families who have been affected could seek a compensation claim for the incidents that have taken place. Although no cause has been stated, the multiple fatalities that occurred could be a sign of medical negligence.
The four cases that resulted in the fatalities have set alarm bells ringing and have highlighted other related incidents that have taken place in the hospital.
The service was put under the spotlight for higher than normal mortality among adult patients undergoing a coronary artery bypass graft, back in 2005.
Worry also began because of concerns about high death rates amongst children undergoing heart surgery, although eventually there was found to be no problem in that area.
An inquiry by the Healthcare Commission - now called the Care Quality Commission - (CQC) concluded that while death rates fell within 'expected' levels, there was still considerable room for improvement. The trust put in place an action plan to deal with the issue.
Concerns over leading hospital
The CQC, the health and social care regulator, said: "We will monitor this situation extremely closely. It is reassuring that the trust has taken action to ensure the immediate safety of patients and limit the incidents that could involve serious personal injury.
"This is high risk surgery, and the trust is taking the right steps in conducting a review."
A spokesman for the hospital said: "We had the four deaths and we thought this was a good time to stop and take a pause and look at our services to see if there are any problems."
The hospital stated that the rate of deaths from heart surgery beforehand, had been in what is considered the acceptable range.
Updated on 04/03/2010