Final Report > Chapter 29: The Care of Children > Messages from Bristol

Messages from Bristol

• The specific healthcare needs of babies and young children undergoing open-heart surgery were too readily subordinated to the need to care for adult cardiac patients.
• There was no system to establish and indicate who had responsibility for the management and care of these children and their families during the various phases of care.
• In the absence of effective planning or service frameworks for children's acute healthcare at national or local level, the particular needs of children were not effectively met.
• The relative lack of concern for the particular needs of a group of highly vulnerable individuals, whatever the degree of dedication of particular individuals, meant that for this among other reasons, the quality of care for children who received open-heart surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary was less than it should have been.