12:09pm Thursday 19th April 2012
By Thom Airs
CONFIRMATION on where Oxfordshire children with heart problems will be treated could be a step closer today.
The Royal Brompton Hospital in London has this morning lost its legal bid to save its heart unit from closure.
The hospital’s challenge to recommendations from the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts (JCPCT) delayed consultation on the setting up of fewer, larger child cardiac centres around the country.
Children’s heart surgery at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital stopped in 2010 after four deaths, but a link between services in Oxfordshire and surgeons at Southampton General Hospital has since thrived.
A continuation of this set-up is one of the options being considered by the JCPCT.
The Royal Brompton had argued the consultation process had been unfair, but its legal challenge was thrown out by High Court judges.
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