An urgent call was today made for the chief executive of Bradford Hospitals NHS Trust to investigate the problem of drug addicts putting intolerable pressure on the city's plastic surgeons.

The call to chief executive David Jackson came from Bradford Community Health Council amid fears that breast reconstruction surgery for cancer patients is being postponed because of the need to urgently operate on drug addicts.

As reported in the Telegraph & Argus on Tuesday, Professor David Sharpe, consultant plastic surgeon at Bradford Royal Infirmary, said his team needed more money after it emerged that drug addicts are forcing the cancellation of non-emergency cases, including breast cancer victims who need reconstructive surgery.

Now the CHC is asking for an inquiry into why drug addicts are being given priority operations for untreatable abscesses caused by injecting narcotics. Some addicts have had to have arms amputated.

Chief officer of Bradford CHC, Lesley Sterling-Baxter, said: "I am writing to David Jackson asking him to investigate the situation.

"If treatment of one type of medical problem is causing a deterioration of service in an entirely unrelated department, then this is a matter of grave concern to all the patients whose interests we represent. CHC policy is for specialist detoxification and rehabilitation services for drug addicts in Bradford. The policy was adopted by the CHC two years ago after a specially-commissioned report highlighted it as an urgent need.

"CHC members are concerned that the situation will become more urgent later this year, when the new Drug Testing Treatment Orders for offenders committing drug-related crimes begins to create a whole new influx of patients requiring treatment for their addictions.''

A Bradford Hospitals NHS Trust spokesman said: "There's no delay in treating patients with cancer.

"David Sharpe was referring to a potential delay in patients waiting for reconstructive surgery after they have had breast cancer. There's around 30 of these cases per year and the vast majority of these haven't been affected at all. As with all patients cared for at BRI and St Luke's, they are treated in order of clinical need."

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