THE first patients from North Durham to be offered a shorter wait for treatment at Bishop Auckland as part of a controversial hospital merger have voted with their feet.
Managers at County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said 49 of 50 patients waiting for urology procedures agreed to the switch after they were told they would be treated within a month at Bishop Auckland rather than waiting up to a year at Durham.
The patients, from Derwentside, Durham City and Chester-le-Street, are believed to be the first to benefit from the effects of the Darzi Plan, a radical shake-up of County Durham and Darlington hospital services to make more efficient use of facilities.
The scheme called for a merger between the South and North Durham NHS trusts to allow spare capacity at Bishop Auckland General Hospital to be used by patients throughout County Durham.
It also relieved pressure on the University Hospital of North Durham, which health officials acknowledged was built with too few beds to meet demand.
Because both hospitals were built as part of the Government's Private Finance Initiative (PFI) there has been criticism that the Darzi Plan was intended to be more of a face-saver than a real solution to health service problems in the county.
A spokeswoman for the County Durham trust said: "Fifty patients were given the choice of a four week maximum wait for day surgery and all but one has chosen to transfer."
Arrangements are now being put in place to allow patients to be given the choice of where they want to have their operation when they are referred by their GP.
The opening of a second endoscopy suite at Bishop Auckland is one of the first steps in creating a Government-funded Diagnostic and Treatment Centre (DTC) at the Wear Valley hospital.
DTCs concentrate on planned operations, allowing other hospitals to deal with emergency cases.
As part of the plan, the County Durham trust recently opened a fourth operating theatre at Bishop Auckland.
The trust says that the 6,439 patients waiting for surgery is over 300 below target
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