A LEADING surgeon has warned that more UK doctors may refuse to refer their patients to see visiting foreign medical teams.

Such a boycott could seriously damage ambitious Government plans to use "flying doctors" from abroad to cut waiting lists.

Charles Collins, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons' national council, was speaking after surgeons in Sunderland refused to allow their patients to be treated by a four-strong visiting team from Germany.

The Wearside surgeons claimed that the visitors had not been properly vetted, according to college guidelines.

Mr Collins said that unless the visiting foreign surgeons were approved by their UK colleagues in advance, a Sunderland-style boycott could spread to other areas.

"The foreign surgeons must become members of the local surgical team for the safety of patients," he said.

The Germans, who have been hired by the NHS to treat 250 orthopaedic patients from Tyneside, Wearside and Northumberland, are the advance guard of what is expected to be an invasion of foreign surgeons.

Northumberland, Tyne and Wear Strategic Health Authority, which has obtained an extra £500,000 to pay for 250 patients to be operated on by the team from Dusseldorf, said the German team had been carefully assessed by health officials.

Peter Bower, chief officer of Sunderland Community Health Council, said he would be concerned if the dispute held up treatment for Wearside patients.

Bosses at City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Trust have laid on extra operating theatre sessions to clear long waiting lists for orthopaedic patients.

But it is not clear whether those patients would now face longer waits for treatment.

The Wearside trust said the "quality of treatment and speed of access" is of the utmost importance in any referral decision.

South Tyneside is one of four UK hospitals where foreign surgical teams are due to operate on patients