Children’s heart surgery at Oxford’s the John Radcliffe Hospital has been suspended following the deaths of four children with congenital heart defects who underwent surgery.

The website www.thisislondon.co.uk reports that the hospital has launched an investigation into the deaths to see if anything can be learned from them. It is believed that 26 youngsters are currently on the waiting list for heart surgery at the hospital and these will be redirected to other units while the investigation takes place.

A spokesman for the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust said:

‘We have temporarily suspended the paediatric cardiac surgery service while we investigate concerns that have been raised.

‘Our investigations are likely to include an external review of the deaths of some very sick children who underwent surgery at the John Radcliffe Hospital in the last three to four months.

‘The families of children awaiting cardiac surgery are being contacted and we will be placing those patients who need to be seen urgently with other hospitals.

‘We are reviewing each of these patients to ensure that they are not put at risk by any delay in their treatment.’

The spokesman added that, although the outcomes for children’s heart surgery at the hospital was audited nationally and had been found to be within ‘normal outcome ranges’, the trust felt it was right that the ‘run’ of deaths was investigated – although such events were not  unknown previously, owing to the fact that some patients are ‘very unwell’ at the time of undergoing surgery.

The Daily Mail reports that the investigation comes three years after the Healthcare Commission published a ’damning’ review into standards of heart surgery at the John Radcliffe Hospital, which at that time had the highest death rate in the country.

The trust responded to this by saying that standards had improved since the Healthcare Commission’s report – and a new children’s unit was opened at the hospital in 2007 for those with heart disease, childhood cancer, neurological disorders or requiring general or specialist surgery.

Health Secretary Andy Burnham said that parents should be ‘reassured’ at the speed with which the inquiry was being launched.

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