Appeal court will rule on children’s heart surgery at London’s Royal Brompton Hospital

The legal battle by the Royal Brompton Hospital in London to stop the closure of its children’s heart surgery unit is heading for the Court of Appeal after the body recommending closure won the right to appeal against a High Court ruling that its consultation was unlawful.

Last November Mr Justice Owen quashed the consultation exercise by the NHS’s Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts to review children’s cardiac surgery services, declaring that it was carried out so unfairly “as to lead to the conclusion that the process went radically wrong” (BMJ …