‘Secrecy’ over heart unit axe condemned

The accusation comes in a plea to NHS Commissioning Board chief executive Sir David Nicholson for full disclosure of information surrounding the closure.

Hundreds of children with life-threatening heart complaints in Yorkshire face journeying up to three hours for surgery following the decision to end operations at Leeds General Infirmary.

Campaigners claim few patients will travel for treatment at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital, which will fail to carry out the minimum number of 400 procedures a year required to bring it up to national standards, and instead will head to Liverpool or Birmingham.

Councillors in Yorkshire plan to refer the decision to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt for a review.

But in a letter to Sir David, Coun John Illingworth, the chairman of the region’s Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, said its work was being “severely hampered” by the refusal of NHS officials involved in the review to respond to “reasonable and legitimate” requests for information.

He said the committee was being “severely impeded by the excessive and wholly unnecessary secrecy” surrounding the work of NHS officials who made the decision and by “inordinate delays in responding to legitimate inquiries and requests for information”.

He added: “Disclosure has been slow, reluctant and incomplete, yet hardly any of this information is even slightly confidential and I can see no good reason why it could not be immediately released.”

Jeremy Glyde, the programme director of NHS Safe and Sustainable, which carried out work on the review, said staff had shared “vast” amounts of information with Coun Illingworth.

“All the information that the NHS used to reach its decision is in the public domain including independent reports, data analysis and responses to the public consultation,” he added.