A High Court judge has quashed part of an NHS consultation process vital for introducing "long overdue" changes to children's heart surgery services across the country.

The judge acted today after recently ruling that the process was legally flawed in relation to the decision to close the children's heart unit at Leeds General Infirmary.

Mrs Justice Nicola Davies, sitting at London's High Court, said aspects of the Leeds consultations, including a failure to make relevant information available to consultees, was ill judged.

But she stressed today she was only quashing one part of the JCPCT decision so that there could be re-consultation and reconsideration over the Leeds closure.

The judge emphasised that she was not ordering that the whole consultation process had to return to the start.

Her decision was a qualified victory for Save Our Surgery (SOS), which represents some 600,000 residents in the Leeds area fighting to keep their unit open.

The group challenged last July's decision of the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts (JCPCT) to select seven specialist centres for the future delivery of paediatric cardiac surgery in England.

Leeds is one of three units facing closure in the Safe and Sustainable NHS review, which was triggered by the Bristol heart scandal in the 1990s in which 35 babies died and dozens more were left brain-damaged.

The aim of the review is to provide fewer but more efficient units round the country.