People have their say as health chiefs look set to downgrade hospital unit

Treatments carried out under a Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority licence at the town’s Assisted Reproduction Unit are due to come to an end.

It is after commissioners said they were unable to find a suitable new provider that met the required standards following the North Tees and Hartlepool hospital trust pulling out due to reported problems getting embryologists.

Hartlepool Borough Council says it is considering legal action after going to the High Court to prevent an earlier closure.

Mail readers have hit out at the situation on our website www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk.

Long-time Hartlepool hospital campaigner Keith Fisher said: “Losing this facility is, with all due respect, a.n.other loss we should not be forced to accept.

“The many other losses from our star-rated hospital have all been brutally dangerous and in clear opposition to the wishes and demands of us ‘ordinary people’.”

Website user Bruno65 said: “This must not have come as a surprise as the members of the local CCG are in no way representative of the local population.

“11 people unelected by the population who are responsible for the rape and pillage of our local services. The council can go to court but the bean counters will provide a policy document from the department of health to justify their actions.”

But Ben88 said: “This was always a risk. If the trust couldn’t deliver why can anyone else?”

Another reader calling themselves replyto said: “Yes the council did take them to court, you didn’t think the NHS was going to take it lying down they have always had the upper hand. They were determined to close it and now they can, albeit a wimp excuse, probably didn’t even try hard enough to find someone. NHS 2 HBC 0.”

Another reader called Old Labour said: “The Tory Government want to privatise the NHS it’s plain to see, every time you switch the news on its crisis after crisis in the NHS. I’m afraid the NHS that we had 20 years ago is now sadly gone and our little local spat is sadly repeated throughout the nation.”

Hartlepool and Stockton Clinical Commissioning Group, which pays for NHS services, said: “We are disappointed that we have not been able to secure a provider but as commissioners our priority is to ensure any service we commission is safe, clinically effective and of the highest quality.”