Once lost, specialist services are unlikely to be available again and it is vital that the whole city acts now.

THE future of vital services at Edinburgh’s famous Sick Kids hospital is under threat as a review of specialist children’s services is carried out across Scotland. The Scottish Government is considering a report which recommends cutting the number of specialist paediatric cancer centres in the country from three to either two or one.

With Glasgow the only city where services are guaranteed to continue, there is a very real threat to services at the Sick Kids in Edinburgh continuing in their current form.

The Government is also considering a similar centralisation of neurological services, which raises the prospect of a further downgrading of treatments offered at the Sick Kids. Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon is expected to make a decision on the future of both these services in the spring.

Not only would the loss of these services impact directly on seriously-ill youngsters and their families, there are also significant concerns about the potential knock-on effects.

Medics fear that losing services would put the hospital on a downward spiral which could lead to it becoming little more than “satellite beds” for its counterpart in Glasgow.

If the Health Secretary does decide to downgrade the Sick Kids’ cancer unit, patients would no longer receive certain services in Edinburgh, including brain-tumour treatment, academic training and early clinical trials of new drugs.

Some young patients, including children with serious brain tumours, would face long stays in Glasgow.

A downgrade of its neurological services would also mean that youngsters from across the region requiring brain surgery would have to travel for operations.