A prestigious £50m regional heart centre is set to be based in Basildon after the town's hospital won out against a rival bid by Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford.

Last week an independent team, together with health professionals from all over Essex and the Eastern region, assessed proposals from both Basildon and Broomfield Hospital.

They ruled Basildon the preferred site - largely due to its "track record of innovations in cardiac services and developing a successful cardiac network."

Alan Whittle, director of finance for Basildon and Thurrock General Hospitals NHS Trust, said although it had been perceived that Broomfield was more central, Basildon had been able to show that access there was just as easy and that it had the available space to build both the centre and sufficient parking.

But shadow health secretary and MP for West Chelmsford Simon Burns said he was "incandescent with rage" after hearing Basildon had been preferred to Chelmsford.

He said: "This decision defies all logic, not least because the people of north Essex will be ill-served by having to travel all the way down to Basildon for their treatment."

North Essex MP Bernard Jenkin said he was 'astonished' by the decision.

A spokeswoman for Mid Essex NHS Hospitals Services Trust said: "We are extremely disappointed and feel that we put together an excellent bid."

The proposal for the new centre will now go before this month's meeting of both North and South Essex Health Authorities for agreement to a three-month public consultation before going to Health Secretary Alan Milburn for final approval. If everything goes to plan, it will open during 2005.

The centre will need 600 staff, including 300 nurses and 58 doctors, to provide surgery for 1,500 patients a year using 126 beds.

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Published Wednesday, March 13, 2002