Save Our Surgery group challenges Leeds heart unit decision (From Keighley News)

Save Our Surgery group challenges Leeds heart unit decision

9:00am Friday 5th October 2012 in Keighley

Save Our Surgery (SOS) has been established to challenge a decision to close the Leeds children’s heart surgery unit, which is regularly used by Bradford patients.

SOS has announced it has applied to the High Court for permission for a Judicial Review. It is disputing the legality of the decision to close the paediatric cardiac surgical unit in Leeds, which will leave Yorkshire, Humber and the North Midlands with a poorer children’s heart surgery service.

Sharon Cheng, from SOS, said: “Fundamentally, this action is about making sure that children across the country have proper access to vital, life-saving services.

“We remain hopeful that common sense and democracy will prevail and that health ministers will use their powers to take up our proposed compromise solution, which offers a safer and more sustainable future for children’s heart surgery in the North than that advanced by the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts .”