THE controversial closure of a North-East stroke unit will go ahead in five days, health bosses have revealed.

The closure of Darlington Memorial Hospital’s stroke unit on Monday is to make way for the centralisation of County Durham’s emergency stroke services at the University Hospital of North Durham, in Durham City.

It follows a decision by NHS County Durham and Darlington – the organisation which commissions hospital services in the area – to support a plan by hospital bosses to switch from a two-centre service to a one-centre service.

The move was strongly opposed by Darlington Borough Council, Darlington Partnership and a number of charities representing elderly people in Darlington.

But the move is going ahead after doctors gave assurances that the centralisation of emergency stroke services would improve treatment and reduce unnecessary deaths and disability.

Currently, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, which runs hospitals in Darlington, Durham City and Bishop Auckland, has a below-average record in terms of hitting national targets for brain scanning and treating patients within a few hours of a suspected stroke Stroke specialists at the trust said that centralising the hyper-acute service will drive up standards and lead to more patients being given clot-busting drugs.

The Durham hospital was selected partly because it has better access to scanning facilities.

A spokesman for the County Durham and Darlington trust said the changes will allow the trust to make significant quality improvements in services for patients.

The original two-centre emergency stroke service became difficult to staff because of national shortages of stroke doctors.

In recent months, the trust has had to resort to switching emergency stroke treatment between the two hospitals weekly.

Monitoring equipment has been purchased to support the new service and a second back-up CT scanner at the Durham hospital is being recommissioned to ensure round-the-clock access to diagnostic scanning.

Between Monday and December 23, some stroke patients at Darlington will be transferred to Bishop Auckland for rehabilitation or will be discharged.

Stroke patients at Darlington who are poorly will be transferred to the Durham hospital.

On Christmas Eve, the Darlington stroke team will move to Durham City.