HEALTH bosses are pushing ahead with plans to treat 250 patients by bringing in a foreign surgical team despite allegations that the German doctors have not been properly vetted.

A four-man surgical team from Dusseldorf will begin operating on 42 patients at South Tyneside Hospital this weekend.

The £500,000 scheme, which will see up to 250 orthopaedic patients operated on at the South Shields hospital, has attracted criticism from UK surgeons.

Tony Cross, an orthopaedic surgeon at Sunderland Royal Infirmary and North-East representative of the Royal College of Surgeons, said he and his colleagues at the Wearside trust are withholding patients from the scheme because the Germans have not been properly vetted according to college guidelines.

But this criticism has been rejected by the Northumberland, Tyne and Wear Strategic Health Authority.

Officials stress that the German team are working to the same "high clinical standards" as their UK colleagues

While not questioning the experience of the German doctors, Mr Cross argues that guidelines that any foreign surgeons should be vetted or approved by the college have not been met.

Instead of sending orthopaedic patients to South Tyneside for treatment, the Wearside trust will lay on extra operations , using a different source of waiting list money.

It is unclear whether this will mean some patients will have to wait longer for surgery.

A spokeswoman for the strategic authority said the German team have been "carefully assessed" and they were not aware of any requirement for the overseas clinical teams to be approved by the Royal College of Surgeons.

Local people who have been offered the chance to be treated by the visiting team were very keen to take it up, she added.

South Tyneside is one of four sites in the UK to be visited by foreign surgical teams.