Recent News
Safe and Sustainable: Consulting with health overview and scrutiny committees up to 5 October 2011
Friday, 20th May 2011
The NHS in England is currently consulting on proposals for reconfiguration of children’s congenital heart services in England. The four-month Safe and Sustainable consultation is reaching large numbers of people: 2,432 have registered to attend public consultation events and almost 5,000 people have already responded to the consultation.
The NHS has been keeping overview and scrutiny committees (OSCs) updated on the review since 2009, and local NHS commissioners continue to work closely with the OSCs to answer their queries about the options that the NHS is consulting on.
Safe and Sustainable would like to encourage all OSCs to consider and respond to the proposals set out in the consultation document Safe and Sustainable: a new vision for children’s congenital heart services in England (‘the consultation proposals’) by 1 July 2011.
Safe and Sustainable will share with OSCs key findings of the health impact assessment during the consultation to inform their responses to the consultation, and a more substantive report will be shared in August 2011. An independent report on the outcome of the consultation will also be shared with OSCs in August 2011. The OSCs will then have an opportunity to add to their earlier submissions, should they wish to, until 5 October 2011.
The JCPCT will consider the formal responses to the consultation proposals from the OSCs in its decision-making process, along with an independent report to the consultation, full health impact assessment and other evidence.
No decisions about the future of any of the centres under review will be made until after the consultation. A decision on the proposals is expected in November 2011 and it will be made by the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts (JCPCT) on behalf of local commissioners.
Once the JCPCT makes a decision on the future configuration of children’s congenital heart services in England, Safe and Sustainable will share it with the overview and scrutiny committees. This is expected to take place in November 2011.
To find out more about the public consultation please visit: http://www.specialisedservices.nhs.uk/safe_sustainable/public-consultation-2011.
If you have further questions, please contact the Safe and Sustainable review at Zuzana.Bates@nsct.nhs.uk.
