Royal Brompton & Harefield Trust judicial review to start this week

RBHT is challenging the decision of a joint committee of primary care trusts to not include it on any of the four options for providers of paediatric cardiac surgery.

The review was ordered after a spate of child deaths which saw experts call for services to be centralised in fewer units.

All four of the options the joint committee came back with involved only two centres in London - Great Ormond Street and the Evelina, part of Guy’s and St Thomas’.

The RBHT has said the consultation was unfair, would lead to a perverse outcome and that the loss of its paediatric cardiac work would render the trust as a whole financially univable.

The joint committee disputes the claims and the case is the first to see two NHS organisations go to a judicial review.

The hearing is expected to last until Wednesday and possibly Thursday. A decision is not expected until several weeks after the hearing.