Glenfield Hospital: Teen makes film about heart unit

A teenager has made a documentary to help save a hospital unit where she had open heart surgery aged 10.

Ellie Kemp, 18, from Keyworth, created the film at college to support the children's heart unit at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester.

The student said she owed her life to medical staff.

Plans to end children's heart surgery in Leicester and divert patients to Birmingham were announced in July 2016, as part of a national review.

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Ellie, a film student at Confetti Institute, Nottingham, made the documentary exploring what it is like to live with congenital heart disease and to highlight the work of medical staff at the unit.

She said: "If it wasn't for Glenfield and if they didn't pick up my heart condition when they did, who knows where I would be in the next 10 or so years.

"The kind of heart condition I had, if it wasn't picked up and treated it would have just got worse and worse until it would have been too late.

"[Glenfield] is the only heart unit in the East Midlands so surely that would be putting more pressure on these bigger centres which will have their own patients.

"They've saved me, they've saved so many other people and it just seems unnecessary to close it."

Ellie's mum Sharon Kemp said: "I'm so proud of her and to highlight this.

"A lot of people need to hear the story because if you've not been down that road you don't know anything about it."

In 2016, NHS England said surgery for children with heart defects should stop at Glenfield.

The hospital was told it did not meet new standards set by the NHS following a national review in 2015.

However, a final decision has yet to be made and the public consultation is due to end on 17 July.