All-island plan for heart surgery

An international team of experts is to assess the future of children’s heart surgery on an all-island basis.

Surgeons from Dublin will see young people during a six-month reprieve for patient care at Belfast’s specialist centre, while a team of American experts consider the future of services for those born with cardiac disease, said Stormont health minister Edwin Poots.

Belfast’s lead surgeon in the speciality, Prof Freddie Woods, is retiring, leaving just one paediatric surgeon at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children.