Some interesting news via the BBC; out of 1,430 heart operations carried out on people from Northern Ireland, 440 had to be performed in England or the Republic of Ireland. The operations cost £14,000 in England and £17,000 in the Republic of Ireland.
The figures are being publicised by the charity NI Chest, Heart and Stroke with the aim of getting all patients treated locally in Belfast. They say that the quality of some of the treatment outside of Northern Ireland "fell short of the high quality standards which are commonplace at the Royal Victoria Hospital".
I was interested to hear more about about this disparity in quality between operations carried out in Belfast and those carried out in London and Dublin, but there were no supporting figures provided, only a mention that "in some cases additional surgery has been needed once the patient returned to Northern Ireland".
I think it would be safe to assume that some patients who are treated in Northern Ireland also need additional surgery after their initial treatment, so it would be interesting to see the actual figures and compare like with like.
