Comments on new standards for Congenital Heart Disease

The Royal College of Surgeons and the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery both support the standards for fetal, paediatric and adult congenital heart disease care published by NHS England. A statement from both organisations said:

“Cardiac surgery for Congenital Heart Disease needs to be delivered in units which have the critical number of staff to support each other, provide secure on-call rotas, disseminate new techniques and train the next generation of specialists. Units must be large enough to ensure that the teams are exposed to all conditions in sufficient volume to maintain experience and expertise.  These new national standards for management of Congenital Heart Disease will help ensure units are delivering a consistently high quality of care while reducing variation and improving outcomes for patients of all ages. 

“We know from the successful national reorganisation of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm surgery, a major form of artery surgery, that the quality of the service improved when patients were treated by highly skilled teams in specialist units delivering high volumes of surgery.”

Notes to editors:

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