NHS loses foreign op case

Mrs Watts paid £3,800 to have her hip operation in France

A grandmother from Bedfordshire has won a landmark court case which could help shorten the wait for National Health Service (NHS) patients.

Yvonne Watts won a High Court ruling that patients who go to other EU states for urgent treatment because of "undue delays" in UK hospitals were entitled to be reimbursed by the NHS.

However the legal ruling, which could allow thousands of people to travel abroad for treatment, did not reimburse the 72-year-old of Queen's Park, Bedford, for the £3,800 she spent in France.

Mr Justice Munby ruled that, although Mrs Watts had established her case "in principle", his decision did not apply to her personally because she had not suffered undue delay in this country.

Waiting list

Despite the lack of compensation Mrs Watts's daughter, Julie Harding, said she was "very pleased" with the judgment even though it was a "mixed result".

She said: "We have established that the primary care trust was wrong in law to simply use waiting lists as a reason to refuse my mother permission to go abroad for her operation."

She said her mother, who was not in court, was now very well and had "got her life back".

Mrs Watts, a grandmother of four, opted to travel to France after she was initially told by Bedford Primary Health Care Trust she would have to wait about a year for her hip operation.

She had accused the trust and he Department of Health of unlawfully refusing to sanction the funding for her operation.

Yvonne Watts was given a date for an operation by the hospital

When she applied for authorisation to go abroad, the trust told her it was not necessary as it was meeting government's target for waiting time for in-patient treatment - set at 15 months.

Mrs Watts's lawyers argued successfully that to decide the issue of "undue delay" by reference to the waiting list target was wrong.

They said the effect was to prevent Mrs Watts from receiving treatment at an early stage despite the urgent clinical need for it.

The trust told the court it had offered to carry out Mrs Watts's hip replacement within three to four months, despite a general in-patient waiting list of 12 months.

In February 2003, Mrs Watts was offered a "slot" on 6 May, but chose to travel to France, where she was treated on 7 March.

Alan Loynes, of Bedfordshire Primary Care Trust, said after the hearing : "We seek to treat all our patients with equality and give them the best possible care, including Mrs Watts.

"We will now be discussing the case with our lawyers to see what will be the next stage in the proceedings."