East Midlands Congenital Heart Centre - adding research to a campaign

Our Congenital Heart Centre, at Glenfield Hospital, was scheduled to close, following a proposal from NHS England to decommission services.  Other centres in England were affected by the proposals too.

Following a big local campaign, a synergy of Trust board, communications staff, doctors and nurses, patients, support groups, local MPs, the press and the local community, the Trust presented alternative proposals to NHS England, and last week at a board meeting, NHS England announced that EMCHC would remain open.   

Some agenda items got a lot of national publicity, so many watched the live feed for those.  But we, and colleagues elsewhere too were watching it for this particular item. 

What has this to do with Clinical Librarians?

Well, I set up a weekly Medline alert to look for research articles discussing complications of, and mortality following, congenital heart surgery, and looking for articles using audit or registry data.  I wanted to make sure colleagues knew of any new research that might be useful to our alternative proposals.   The alert went straight to senior clinicians and the project manager, but also to me so I could check the search was finding what I had in mind, and so I could check for things I thought would be worth reading in full.   

UHL's press release about the announcement.

More about the Centre, including press releases and information from the campaign.