FIGURES used to justify controversial plans to strip a North-East hospital of its specialist unit to treat stroke victims are being challenged by community leaders.

An alliance of business leaders, council officials and the voluntary sector has come together to question the validity of statistics that could see stroke care centralised in Durham City instead of Darlington.

They fear the figures being presented in Durham’s favour are misleading and could lead not only to the loss of the local stroke unit, but undermine the future of Darlington Memorial Hospital.

Darlington Borough Council and Darlington Partnership, which represents a cross section of public, private and voluntary sector organisations in the town, have come together to question proposals to locate hyper-acute stroke services at the University Hospital of North Durham, in Durham City.

This is the preferred option of NHS County Durham and Darlington, which recently launched a public consultation on the proposed changes.

While local health bosses have concluded that average journey times to Durham City are slightly shorter, officials in Darlington argue that the basis of the calculations is flawed.

Using the same figures, they have worked out that some patients from Darlington will take up to 15 times longer to travel to the Durham hospital than to Darlington Memorial Hospital.

Councillor Cyndi Hughes, cabinet member for children and young people, said: “This could be the thin end of the wedge. What is happening in Darlington sounds like what happened in Bishop Auckland in the Nineties.”

At present, the round-theclock- service, which involves suspected stroke patients being given a brain scan to see if they could benefit from clotbusting drugs, alternates between stroke centres at the University Hospital of North Durham and Darlington Memorial.

However, Dr Bernard Esisi, head of County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust’s stroke service, has said a two-centre model is not viable in the long-term because of medical manpower problems and the difficulties of obtaining around-the-clock scanning facilities at Darlington.

His advice to the primary care trust (PCT), reflected in the recommended option, is that the service should be centralised at the Durham City hospital because it has the best scanning facilities and is the most convenient centre for the County Durham population.

Using a complex points system to assess various options for siting a 24-hour-a-day acute stroke treatment unit, the PCT puts the University Hospital of North Durham ahead of Darlington Memorial Hospital by 841 points to 815.

But now Darlington Borough Council’s health and well-being scrutiny committee has joined forces with the Darlington Partnership to question how the PCT arrived at its decision to back Durham over Darlington.

They will be focusing on the way postcodes were used to calculate patient travel times to both centres and the provision of equipment and services at the Durham City and Darlington hospitals.

The two bodies will also be asking the NHS for details of treatment outcomes, to see if patients who travelled the farthest suffered worse outcomes.

Councillor Wendy Newall, chairwoman of the health and wellbeing scrutiny committee, said: “We have set up a review group to scrutinise the consultation document to make sure it is accurate, robust and transparent.

“We have also set up a programme of engagement. We have grave concerns about some of the travel times presented in the document.”

Darlington Partnership chairman Alasdair Mac- Conachie said: “A range of concerns were raised at a Darlington Partnership board meeting this week: some about the consultation process, some about the data used and others about the future of Darlington Memorial Hospital in the longer term.

“The decisions about whether there should be a single site for hyperacute stroke services for Durham and Darlington and where it should be located need to be based on good evidence.

“Darlington Partnership is determined to ensure that best possible care is available for the people of Darlington should they have a stroke.

Good patient care is our major concern.”