SCORES of patients face a struggle to attend hospital appointments, after NHS funding for a voluntary transport service ended, leaving it operating at half its previous level.

About 40 patients a day were reliant on the volunteer driver scheme, run by the Friends of Darlington Memorial Hospital, which provides free transport to patients who have difficulty getting to and from the hospital.

The scheme has been running for 19 years, and for the first 14 years was mainly funded by the Friends’ fundraising efforts and donations, with the NHS covering 20 per cent of the cost.

As the service grew, however, so too did the costs, with the NHS making up the shortfall in the form of grants – covering 50 per cent of the roughly £100,000 a year expenses, which mainly went towards reimbursing fuel costs incurred by volunteer drivers.

These grants ended at the end of December, while an application to the Clinical Commissioning Group for funding for the service was turned down.

Alan Charlton, chairman of the Friends, said: “We’re continuing to run the service to the highest level we can.

“It ran as normal until the end of March, but from April 1, we’ve had to scale it back to 50 per cent of its previous working level.

“We’ve got 16 drivers who give their time and use of their cars, but we can’t expect volunteers to pay for the cost of the fuel as well.”

The removal of funding came shortly after the criteria for ambulance eligibility was restricted in the region in October 2014, leaving patients living miles from the hospital even more reliant on the service.

Mr Charlton expects these patients, who make up the majority of their clientele, to be severely affected by the scaling back of the service.

He added: “It’s difficult for those who are living 30 to 40 miles away who now have to find alternative ways to get there – it would be extremely expensive to cover the cost of a taxi, for instance.

“Lots of patients simply won’t be able to go in.”

One patient, who did not want to be named but has been using the service for over a year, called for a reversal of the decision.

He said: “This service is run by a band of volunteers at a fraction of the cost of an ambulance; they have never let me down.

“I give a donation every time I use their service, but their overheads have to come from somewhere.”

Mr Charlton added that the Friends were continuing to look for funding from other sources.

A spokesman for County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, said: “As the service has grown, the trust has covered about 50 per cent of the cost of the scheme for the last few years.

"This has totalled £40,000 to £50,000 per year, while alternative sources of funding have been sought.

"Unfortunately this has not proved possible.

"The trust has had to make a difficult decision that it cannot continue to fund a free travel service to patients in one area that is not available to patients in other areas we serve, and to patients who are not eligible for free transport under the criteria for NHS travel agreed by our commissioners.”