National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence (NICE)

NICE is an independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance in the promotion of good health and the prevention and treatment of ill health.

Have you had experience of this heart ‘hybrid’ procedure for newborn babies?

The hybrid procedure is performed on babies born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. It consists of two or three different procedures which have the overall aim of establishing blood flow to and from the left side of the heart. The hybrid procedure is performed soon after birth, in order to delay the time of complex open heart surgery (the Norwood operation) until the baby is older and better able to withstand the surgery. The hybrid procedure involves both surgery, in which bands are placed around the branches of the pulmonary artery, and catheterisation techniques, in which stents (metal mesh tubes) are inserted to keep the ductus arteriosus open.

The National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence (NICE) will be drafting guidance to the NHS, determining whether the Hybrid procedure for interim management of hypoplastic left heart syndrome in newborns is safe and works well enough to be used more widely in the NHS by clinicians, such as consultants. This guidance will cover England, Wales and Scotland.

If you are in contact with any parents/carers/children who would be willing to take part in these discussions (largely by email) it would greatly help us if you would ask then to contact NICE directly by email victoria.thomas@NICE.org.uk