Campaigners have taken the first step towards a legal challenge to the decision to close the children’s heart surgery unit at Leeds General Infirmary as part of a move to concentrate services in fewer, larger, and more specialised units in England.

A charity based at the infirmary, the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund, has sent a letter threatening judicial review proceedings in the High Court over the proposed closure.

The Leeds unit is one of three facing the axe after the Safe and Sustainable review by the joint committee of primary care trusts (JCPCT), which concluded that the number of units carrying out surgery for congenital heart defects …