Hospital should stop all child heart surgery, inquiry demands

A children's heart unit at an internationally renowned hospital is so unsafe that it should never again be allowed to operate, a report is expected to demand today.

Four babies died within three weeks of each other after undergoing operations at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford from December last year to February this year.

Surgery was halted at the cardiac unit after Caner Salih, the consultant surgeon who carried out the operations on the babies who died, complained the hospital was using old equipment and had poor working practices. An inquiry was ordered and its report, due to be published later today, is expected to condemn the cardiac unit as unsafe.

The report is also critical of the slow response by the hospital to Mr Salih's concerns. It took up to six weeks after the doctor blew the whistle before surgery was halted and an inquiry ordered.

The hospital is expected to be criticised for failing to inform the Strategic Health Authority (SHA) or the Care Quality Commission of the doctor's concerns until some weeks after he raised them.

At the time the babies died, managers at the John Radcliffe were attempting to boost the number of patients treated at the children's cardiac unit in a bid to prevent its closure. They were aware that a review of children's heart surgery to be published later this year is likely to call for the closure of small units.

Of the four babies whose deaths prompted the inquiry, the report concludes that one of them would have most likely died anyway. Doctors found it was "difficult to say" if the other three might have survived surgery under different conditions. They pointed out that national mortality rates for the procedure were not high but also observed that each of the children was extremely ill.

There was no suggestion in the report that Mr Salih was responsible for any of the deaths and his competence as a surgeon was not called into question. He has since taken a post at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, London.

Mr Salih's post at the John Radcliffe was his first in Britain after working in Australia. He worked at the unit as one of two consultants with Professor Stephen Westaby and was taken on as part of an attempt to boost the number of patients treated there.

The report is not thought to criticise Professor Westaby, the senior of the two consultants, but is expected to describe him as "idiosyncratic", according to the Daily Telegraph, with other staff having to adapt to his ways of working. It was noted that he went on holiday the day after his new colleague started work.

Neither the hospital nor the SHA were willing last night to comment on the report's conclusions.