AN MP has called for the medical director of the NHS to resign after surgery on children with congenital heart defects was suspended at a controversy-hit hospital.

Leeds MP Greg Mullholland said Sir Bruce Keogh’s decision was an "absolute scandal" and “beggared belief”, 24 hours after a High Court judge ruled the decision-making process to close the paediatric heart unit at Leeds General Infirmary was legally flawed.

The court judgement created fresh uncertainty for the children's heart surgery unit at the Freeman Hospital, in Newcastle, which had been chosen as the main centre for the North, at the expense of the West Yorkshire unit.

The Leeds unit, which treats 400 patients a year including some from North Yorkshire, launched an internal review on Thursday, after data suggested a death rate twice the national average.

Sir Bruce Keogh, the medical director of NHS England, said there was a constellation of reasons to suspend operations at the unit and that he had received disturbing calls from two whistleblowers.

He said the surgeons expressed concerns over staffing levels and a reluctance to refer patients to other units, such as the Freeman Hospital, for complex operations.

Nicola Garbutt, of Skipton, North Yorkshire, whose one-year-old grandson George Hall was born with an under-developed heart, said her family had to fight to have him treated in Newcastle rather than Leeds.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust has denied the claims, which are being investigated by the Care Quality Commission.

Mr Mulholland’s call followed a leading clinician claiming the mortality figures which led to the suspension were not fit to be used.

Dr John Gibbs, chairman of the steering committee for the Central Cardiology Audit Database, which supplied the data, said the mortality figures were preliminary and had not undergone the usual rigorous checking process.

He said problem had already been identified with the figures, with some data being incorrectly discounted from results.

Dr Gibbs said: “I’m absolutely furious. This data was not fit to looked at by anyone outside the committee.”

After the NHS review announced surgery should focus at fewer, larger sites, to concentrate medical expertise, more than 600,000 people, including parents not wanting to travel long distances for their children's care, signed a petition to retain the Leeds unit.

Stuart Andrew, Conservative MP for Pudsey, who has led a cross-party campaign to keep the unit open, said he had not received one complaint about care at the unit.

He said: “I think it is very odd indeed. We have always been told it’s safe at Leeds. Suddenly that’s changed.”