Birmingham hospital to stop children's surgery

Children's surgery will be moved out of a Birmingham hospital to others "better placed" to provide the specialist care, bosses have said.

The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital said it will cease providing paediatric surgery by 1 January 2018.

It said the decision followed advice from experts after reviews recommended improvements to paediatric care.

Bosses say the decision has been made "to ensure children received the best possible services".

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The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said the decision was made after reviews last year by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Heath (RCPCH), in which a series of recommendations were made around continuing to improve paediatric care in line with national guidelines.

The trust said it had undertaken a "significant amount of work and investment to meet these recommendations".

It added: "However, recent external reviews over the last few weeks have reiterated that paediatric inpatient surgery would be better delivered in a hospital setting with access to extensive centralised care facilities at all times."

Bosses are now working on a plan to move the services to another hospital - or hospitals - which are better placed to provide the specialist care.

Organisations are working on a Birmingham-based solution, the trust said.

The hospital, in Northfield, provides a range of paediatric services from general orthopaedic services to complex spinal surgery.

It carried out 1,506 paediatric day cases and inpatient stays in 2016/17.