A DATE has been set for a meeting which should decide where a new single acute stroke unit will be based.

The issue of whether a single stroke unit for the whole of County Durham should be at The University Hospital of North Durham, in Durham City, or Darlington Memorial Hospital has been hotly disputed.

It has set NHS County Durham and Darlington and Durham County Council against Darlington Borough Council and the town’s MP, Jenny Chapman.

But, after a long period of public consultation and debate, a decision is expected to be taken at a board meeting of NHS County Durham and Darlington on Tuesday, November 1. It will be held at 2pm, at the Durham Centre, in Belmont, Durham City.

The row started when NHS County Durham and Darlington published a consultation document earlier this year which made The University Hospital of North Durham the preferred site for a new 24-hour, seven-days-a-week acute stroke treatment unit.

This followed a review of countywide stroke services carried out by NHS County Durham and Darlington in collaboration with County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust.

Trust officials agreed that the centralisation of acute stroke services was needed because the current model – which sees the acute unit alternating on a weekly basis between the Durham hospital and Darlington Memorial – could not be sustained in the long term because of a difficulty in recruiting enough doctors.

An assessment of which centre was more suitable came down narrowly on the side of the Durham site. This was partly because it has better access to round-the-clock scanning, better all-round facilities, treats more patients than Darlington Memorial and offers slightly shorter journey times to the average patient.

But this led to strong criticism from Darlington Borough Council and Mrs Chapman. Both argued that Darlington was just as suitable and actually served a larger population than Durham.

The council and the MP also said that the primary care trusts’ preferred option was based on flawed statistics about patient travel times.

Recently, a 780-name petition from Darlington Stroke Club opposing the proposed closure of the Darlington acute stroke unit was presented to NHS County Durham and Darlington.