Originally Posted by Gypsie~:
Southampton general hospital has the second best childrens unit in the country but due to cuts it faces closure.
It's not just a matter of funding cuts. Private Eye has been covering this, and one of the main reasons for reducing the number of cardiac units around the country is a long overdue attempt to implement the lessons learnt from the Bristol heart scandal back in the 90's (which the Eye was instrumental in exposing). Basically, you have all the best experts in a few centres where they get to perform a reasonably high number of difficult operations each year so they get lots of practise, rather than spread them thin in a lot of units around the country where they only perform one or two operations each year. It's considerably safer that way, and in principle is A Very Good Thing.
The problems with the proposed closure of the Southampton unit are that (a) it's actually one of the best ones in the country, and (b) the review process didn't take into account the Isle of Wight. Without Souhampton, IoW residents would have to travel to Bristol or London, which are over the 4 hours travel limit for specialist centres - thus again increasing safety risks.
Instead of admitting they got it wrong, the review panel have apparently been "developing scenarios" by which they can get ambulances from London to the IoW under certain circumstances...