The Children’s Heart Federation welcomes the reassurance that immediate safety issues in respect of paediatric cardiac surgery have been resolved.

We understand that surgery will be phased in gradually over the next month starting with the lower-risk cases. We feel that it would help many parents to have an explanation as to what this means, particularly what is regarded as a lower risk case and what will the phasing look like.

We also feel that it would be helpful to have an explanation as to what has actually been happening because the tone and content of the information from NHS England is quite different to the tone and content of the information coming from the Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust. This mixed-messaging is confusing, distressing and misleading.

We understand that despite surgery restarting, the review is continuing and we hope that at the end of the process there will be a clear explanation of all actions taken.