THE first patients from North Durham to be offered the chance to have faster treatment at Bishop Auckland as part of a controversial hospital merger have voted with their feet.

Bosses at County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said 49 out of 50 patients waiting for urology procedures agreed to the switch from 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 hospitals designed to make more efficient use of facilities.

The scheme called for a merger between the old South and North Durham NHS trusts to allow spare capacity at the new Bishop Auckland General Hospital to be used by patients throughout County Durham.

It also relieved pressure on the new University Hospital of North Durham, which health bosses acknowledge was built with too few beds to meet modern NHS demands.

Because both hospitals were built as part of the Government's controversial 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 throughout 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 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.

This has helped to dramatically reduce the number of orthopaedic patients waiting for surgery.

Trust bosses point out that while 6,439 patients remain on the waiting list for planned surgery, this is more than 300 below target