HC Deb 25 March 2002 vol 382 cc763-4W
Paul Holmes

To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) whether reducing the number of transplant centres in the United Kingdom is expected to lead to a reduction in the number of retrieval teams available; [4516]

(2) what financial savings would be made by reducing the number of heart and lung transplant centres to (a) four and (b) five; [4517]

(3) what policies are being put in place to increase the level of transplants and organ donation, per head of population; [4519]

(4) if the study relating to the number of transplant units undertaken by Finnamore management consultants for the national specialist commissioning advisory group will be made available for public study. [4518]

Mr. Hutton

[holding answer 19 July 2001]: I apologise to the hon. Member for the delay in responding to this question. I refer the hon. Member to the reply that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State gave my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) on 5 March 2002, Official Report, column 192W.

Our long term goal for the cardiothoracic service is to increase the number of patients who receive successful heart and lung transplants, to ensure that today's high quality service is sustained in the future and to improve the working lives of the professionals who provide this crucial service.

To meet this goal, we issued a discussion document on 21 September 2001. It announces that all six cardiothoracic transplant units will continue to provide a service to NHS patients. To do so, they will need to meet the clear and explicit requirements set out in the new monitoring framework proposed in the discussion document. These requirements include staffing levels and qualifications, arrangements for retrieval of organs, the number of transplants carried out or the number of patients seen in follow-up clinics and survival and rejection rates. All six units will be inspected against these requirements.

The new service standards and effective monitoring will help ensure continued improvement to the quality of cardiothoracic transplant services, and provide patients with a national service of the highest possible quality. A copy of the discussion document, which invites comments on the standards and specification for the service, is in the Library.