Final Report > Chapter 15: The Culture and Management at the UBH/T > Cardiac services

Cardiac services

11 Waiting times for adult patients needing cardiac care were unacceptably long. Deborah Evans, Director of Contract Management, B&DHA, 1991-1995, informed the Inquiry that waiting times were the biggest single issue in contract negotiations between the B&DHA and the UBHT. They related largely to adult rather than to children's services. [12] Children could be treated, but only at the cost of not treating adults. Moreover, paediatric patients stayed in hospital and, particularly in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), for a longer period of time on average and their treatment cost more. A tension clearly existed. Even treating children, let alone developing the paediatric cardiac surgical (PCS) service, therefore, was, to that extent, in competition with the increasing demand for treatment of adults, particularly as adult cardiac care was designated as a national priority. Thus, for those seeking to reduce the adult waiting times and to increase revenue by caring for more adult patients, [13] there was no incentive energetically to seek the development of the PCS service. The picture which emerges is that, in the case of Bristol, the cardiac surgical service was an adult service. PCS in the form of open-heart surgery was tacked on to it, rather than being a dedicated service in its own right.

Footnotes

[12] WIT 0159 0023 Miss Evans. She told the Inquiry that `In children's cardiology and cardiac services ... waiting times were rarely if ever an issue.'

[13] WIT 0114 0029 Fiona Thomas