A MUM from Huddersfield has led a delegation to Westminster in an effort to save a children’s heart surgery unit in West Yorkshire.

Gaynor Bearder, from Linthwaite, went to meet MPs as the future of the Children’s Heart Surgery Unit in Leeds hangs in the balance.

The unit is under threat as an NHS review of the 11 centres carrying out the work considers future provision.

Ms Bearder said the possibility of children travelling to Newcastle for treatment could cost lives.

Ms Bearder, whose son Joel was treated at the Leeds unit, said closing the surgical unit in Leeds was “unfair on children”.

She said: “An extra 100 miles away for babies like Joel that had such a little amount of time left and was so poorly, they’re just not going to make it, they won’t survive.

“It’s not just emergency transfers, it’s being separated from your family.

“It will just make such a heart-breaking situation a million times worse.

“I think they’re putting money and finances before the lives of our children and quite frankly our children deserve more than that.

“They fight every single day to stay alive.

“These people that make these decisions, they should think about it as if it was their child or grandchild.

“What would they want? They’d want the best care and they’d want it to be local.”

Colne Valley MP Jason McCartney is one of those backing a campaign that aims to retain life-saving children’s heart surgery services in the Yorkshire region. He visited the unit at Leeds General Infirmary, which serves the Yorkshire region and then met the parents and surgeons in Parliament.

The NHS’s Safe and Sustainable review of the 11 children’s heart surgery units in England has recommended a reduction in the number of units to create fewer, larger centres.

It has put forward four options for a four-month public consultation period, with the LGI unit featuring in only one option.

Mr McCartney said: “I am concerned that if this unit closes, local families will be forced to take their children to centres as far away as Newcastle, Liverpool or even London for life-saving surgery.

“In emergency situations that will put children’s lives at risk.”

The Colne Valley MP is supporting the campaign led by the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund, the charity that supports the unit on behalf of families.

A final decision will be made in the autumn and surgery could stop at the affected units by 2013.

For more about the campaign go to www.chsf.org.uk