Heart inquiry will look at 1,000 children

A PUBLIC inquiry into the Bristol heart surgery disaster announced by the Government yesterday will consider the cases of more than 1,000 children operated on over more than a decade, provoking fears that it could cost millions of pounds and run for years.

Frank Dobson, the Health Secretary, said the inquiry would examine the "care of children receiving complex cardiac surgical services at the Bristol Royal Infirmary between 1984 and 1995".

The scale of the task facing the inquiry can be gauged from the fact that it follows an eight-month hearing by the General Medical Council, the longest in its history, which examined the cases of just 53 children, of whom 29 had died.

The hearing cost the council pounds 2.2m and ended with a decision to strike one doctor off the medical register and order another not to carry out operations on children for three years.

In Canada, a public inquiry into a similar disaster in Winnipeg has so far lasted almost three years and has investigated the deaths of 12 infants.

That inquiry into the work of a paediatric surgeon, Jonah Odin, has heard evidence from 80 witnesses and is due to finish next month.

It had been expected to last six months but 14 separate parties sought legal representation and it has turned into a legal and bureaucratic nightmare.

In Bristol, the infirmary was designated a specialist centre for paediatric heart surgery in 1984 and is estimated to have carried out between 1,000 and 1,500 complex heart operations in the 11-year period to 1995.

The inquiry, to be chaired by Ian Kennedy, professor of medical law and ethics at University College London, will not look at all 1,000-plus operations in detail, many of which were successful; however, it faces a formidable workload.

Ministers have given Professor Kennedy wide discretion over what to include to ensure the inquiry does not become unwieldy.

A spokesman for the health department said: "Ministers are well aware of the problems the Canadians have run into and some of the reasons it has taken so long and wish to avoid them. The Secretary of State is keen for the inquiry to be as swift as possible."

A preliminary hearing will be held in Bristol in the autumn and full public hearings will begin in Bristol and London in the new year.

The announcement was welcomed by medical and patients' organisations. "We feel this will get as close to the truth as possible," said Malcolm Curnow of the Bristol Heart Children's Action Group, whose daughter Verity, nine, died after a heart operation in 1990. "We have waited this long to get answers and we don't want it to be rushed."

t The Scottish hospital at the centre of last month's breast and bowel cancer scare yesterday suspended a second surgeon amid fears from colleagues surrounding clinical practices.

Angus NHS Trust said it had suspended Mr Peeyush Sharma from his duties as a consultant general surgeon at Stracathro Hospital, Brechin, pending an investigation, and 400 of his cases are being reviewed.

The surgeon is also at the centre of trust concerns over the circumstances surrounding the management of a recent emergency surgical case at the hospital, the trust said.