Final Report > Chapter 8: Paediatric Cardiac Surgical Services > Monitoring by the Supra Regional Services Advisory Group

Monitoring by the Supra Regional Services Advisory Group

43 In the early years, any monitoring carried out by the SRSAG, based on annual figures submitted by the designated centres, was for the purposes of producing recommendations on funding for the next financial year. The introduction of service agreements, or `contracts', in 1991 was accompanied by the submission to the SRSAG of quarterly activity figures as well as an annual report from the unit.

44 Professor Gareth Crompton, the then Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for Wales, told the Inquiry that:

`I would have expected from the beginning, when they established the supra-regional centres, that there would have been a system of data capture and analysis and publication from each of the centres, distributed freely to the Department of Health and to Regional Health Authorities who were sending patients there from Wales or wherever and that the Supra Regional Services Advisory Group would have been in full knowledge of all the facts relating to this important initiative. If that was not the case, then I am surprised.' [40]

45 But Dr Halliday made clear in his evidence that the SRS was a funding arrangement. [41] Whoever might be responsible for monitoring the quality of the service, in his view it was not the SRS. [42] Sir Kenneth Calman, CMO for England 1991-1998, however, considered that: `it would be the responsibility of the Supra Regional Services Advisory Group to ensure that there was a process for monitoring'. [43] No such process existed. The SRS system, at least in the case of NICS, was not used to monitor the quality of the service provided.

Footnotes

[40] T21 p.72 Professor Crompton

[41] T89 p.134-5 Dr Halliday

[42] T13 p.112-13 Dr Halliday

[43] T66 p.98 Sir Kenneth Calman