Suspension of paediatric heart surgery in Leeds provokes controversy

Children’s heart surgery at Leeds General Infirmary was suspended last week on the day after campaigners won a High Court ruling quashing a decision to close the unit as part of a plan to concentrate services in fewer, larger, and more specialised units.

Surgery at the Leeds unit was put on hold pending an internal review, after the NHS’s medical director, Bruce Keogh, visited Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust on Thursday 28 March, along with representatives of the Care Quality Commission.

Keogh acknowledged that the timing of his intervention looked suspicious, coming only the day after Leeds campaigners won a High Court ruling that the “Safe and Sustainable” review would have to redo part of the process leading to its decision to …