A SPECIALLY commissioned consultation report into the potential closure of a Tees fertility clinic has been severely criticised.

Senior Hartlepool councillor Ray Martin-Wells has questioned a report into fertility services at the University Hospital of Hartlepool’s Assisted Reproduction Unit (ARU) which says NHS managers’ decision earlier this year to end the service was correct .

Cllr Martin-Wells, who is chairman of Hartlepool Borough Council’s Audit and Governance Committee which scrutinises NHS services, said the report was “extremely disappointing” and “misguided”.

The consultation report by the NHS Northern England Clinical Senate was commissioned by the NHS Hartlepool and Stockton-on-Tees Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) after a public outcry.

This follows High Court action taken by Hartlepool council which resulted in an injunction to stop the closure of licensed fertility services at the end of March 2016 with the High Court judge ordering that the CCG use their best endeavours to ensure that consultation is completed and a final decision about the future of the ARU taken by the end of July. The report concludes that North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust; “was right to consider clinical safety of the ARU to be compromised in 2015,” as part its decision in January 2016 to end licensed fertility services.

However, Councillor Ray Martin-Wells has reacted strongly. He said: “They are misguided and fundamentally flawed. On November 27 last year the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority gave the service a clean bill of health and if the Senate review team had visited the service then I am sure they would have come to the same conclusion. The claim by the Hospital Trust that it cannot recruit sufficient embryologists is totally without foundation and my committee has the evidence to substantiate this..”

A Spokeswoman for NHS Hartlepool and Stockton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said: “We acknowledge the concerns raised by the local council in relation to the findings of the independent clinical review team. This information will be considered alongside all other responses received during the consultation period to enable the CCG’s Governing body to make an informed decision.”

Hartlepool The Council’s Audit & Governance Committee meets on 28 July at 10am in the Civic Centre, Hartlepool will consider the findings of the Senate’s report and results of the Public Consultation which ends on the 15 July 2016.