DRIED blood and bits of human flesh were discovered on surgical instruments supplied by Health Secretary Alan Milburn's local hospital, doctors told The Northern Echo last night.

One appalled surgeon refused to use surgical equipment which had supposedly been sterilised at Darlington Memorial Hospital.

Last night bosses at the South Durham Health Care NHS Trust confirmed that they had stepped up sterilisation procedures after four operations were cancelled because of dirty instruments.

Simon Stock, a general surgeon at the South Durham trust, refused to operate on a woman patient after theatre staff at Bishop Auckland General Hospital found blood and bits of flesh still attached to them.

Since the Bishop Auckland hospital's own sterilising department closed three years ago, all surgical instruments are cleaned at the Darlington Memorial Hospital's sterile services unit.

The problem was highlighted by Bishop Auckland GP Dr Alan Lewis who contacted The Northern Echo after one of his patients had her gallbladder operation cancelled at very short notice for the second time.

After visiting the "distressed" patient's home on Tuesday, he spoke to Mr Stock and then wrote to Bishop Auckland MP Derek Foster.

In his letter to Mr Foster- a copy of which has been obtained by The Northern Echo - Dr Lewis wrote: "He told me that he had suspended operations because instruments were coming from the Sterilisation Centre in Darlington in a filthy state with blood and bits of flesh still attached to them. He has apparently suspended operations on three previous occasions."

Dr Lewis added: "This is an absolutely disgraceful and intolerable situation."

Mr Foster said he had asked the trust to carry out an urgent investigation and had passed a copy of the letter to Mr Milburn, MP for Darlington.

Kevin Oxley, director of estates at the trust, admitted the sterilisation facilities needed upgrading, but pointed out that the trust meets current national standards and in terms of quality control they are in the top 25 per cent of NHS hospitals.

"Our failure rate is about 00.001, which means out of the 2.4m instruments cleaned every year about 200 fail the quality control test," he said.

The trust is currently preparing a bid for an extra £500,000 to modernise sterilisation equipment.

Mr Oxley stressed that there was always a final visual check on instruments in the operating theatre. Even those which appeared dirty had been sterilised at ultra-high temperatures and would not constitute a danger to patients