A LEADING specialist has spoken out after a mobile research project was denied access to one of the region's top heart units.

Families in the region are being urged to support the British Heart Foundation's pioneering study into the genetic causes of heart disease.

A group of doctors and nurses from the BHF have been travelling the UK aboard a double-decker bus to promote the project.

The team had hoped to visit South Cleveland Hospital in Middlesbrough. Its cardiothoracic unit carries out the largest number of heart operations in the region.

But the BHF team was told their bus could not be accommodated at South Cleveland so the team went to North Tees General Hospital in Stockton instead.

Professor Alistair Hall, a consultant cardiologist from Leeds University and the joint leader of the study, said: "We had hoped to go there but when we contacted the doctors at the hospital we were told that we wouldn't be welcome so we went to North Tees where we had a great welcome."

Prof Hall said the refusal of their request seemed to follow a pattern of not making the BHF welcome at the hospital.

"I think it is a shame, I believe that if they had known what we were about they would have felt quite differently. I can only assume they thought we were on a fundraising mission."

It is understood that since the BHF begin to insist that all funds raised around the UK should be administered centrally, fundraisers at the Middlesbrough heart unit have supported an independent charity, the South Cleveland Hospital Heart Fund.

Dr Jim Hall, a consultant cardiologist who speaks for the Middlesbrough unit, said: "The request was made at very short notice. They only contacted us a few weeks ago. Our hospital is a building site at the moment and the logistics of it all made it very difficult."

The study, which aims to recruit 2,000 UK families with a strong history of early heart disease was being supported by the unit, he added. For more information about the BHF family heart study, ring 0800 052 7154.