Bar allowed to operate after appeal to inspector
A bid to prevent a town centre bar from operating has been overturned by a government inspector.
Hartlepool Borough Council had rejected an application for a bar at The Intro, on York Road, in November due to concerns from councillors over a potential increase in crime and noise.
The venue, which has since rebranded as Screams Court 2.0, had already started operating as a coffee bar and live music venue without permission a month before the decision, when it relocated to the York Road premises from Hartlepool Marina.
The Planning Inspectorate ruled the venue would have "an acceptable effect" on the living conditions of neighbours in terms of noise.
A report added the development would not "unacceptably increase the potential for crime", reports the Local Democracy Reporting service.
In July last year, a licensing application was approved to give the York Road site permission to sell alcohol and play live and recorded music.
It also imposed conditions such as installing a noise limiter.
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Bar appeal after permission to open rejected
Bar operating without permission could face action
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As these were 'off-the shelf' items, the waiting time should be shorter than for an appropriate organ donation. Many patients already had access to other advanced treatments like ICDs and cardiac resynchronisation therapies (CRTs), he added. 'The only option they have is an operation that can allow them to live another 8 years.' He emphasised the benefits for younger patients: 'That's giving them back quality life, where they can work again, exercise and do things again – going from being bed bound and possibly dying within a year.' High Mortality in Advanced Heart Failure Dar said advanced heart failure carries significant mortality risk. One-year mortality is around 40% using European Society of Cardiology (ESC) criteria, and 20% with American Heart Association benchmarks. Based on US data, around 14% of a population of around 60,000 met ESC criteria for advanced heart failure, with 5% 'within transplantable age' from 18 to 65, said Dar. Extrapolated to the UK with a total population of 68 million, one million would have a diagnosis of heart failure, 140,000 would have advanced disease, 50,000 would be under 65, and 10,000 eligible for transplantation or LVAD therapy. A 'feeling that we were not getting enough referrals' had led Dar and other transplant physicians across the UK and Ireland to form a working group to look into the issue. The aim was to create a heatmap of referrals that had been made to heart transplant and LVAD centres and assess inequality and equity of care. Audit Exposes Regional Inequalities The working group audited four months of referral data, including 416 patients with a median age of 52. Most were men (67%) and White (73%), with a non-ischaemic cause of heart failure (55%). In 44% of outpatient referrals and 17% of inpatient referrals, patients were considered 'too well' for transplant or LVAD. Respectively, 29% and 39% had contraindications to either option, with 19% and 31% progressing towards a transplant or device fitting. High body mass index was a key exclusion factor, alongside liver or kidney failure, diabetes-related organ damage, or smoking. The audit found significant regional variation – a 'postcode lottery' in access. 'There are large areas, particularly in Wales and the Northeast of England, that are simply not referring patients with advanced heart failure – for transplant or LVAD therapy,' Dar noted. Even areas around specialist transplant centres were not referring patients, he added. Calls for a National Referral Pathway 'It's affirmed what we suspected,' Dar told Medscape News UK . 'So, I think the idea now is to speak to NHS England and colleagues to try and address this inequality and raise awareness of it to see how we can improve things.' One approach, he suggested, might be to create a national pathway that sets out how quickly someone with suspected advanced heart failure was seen by a specialist team. Jenkins observed that travelling to specialist centres could be a problem for many patients living in more rural areas who could face long journeys. He suggested that specialists could perhaps hold monthly clinics withing existing heart failure centres. Whatever the reason for the lack of referrals, Dar said it was clear that more needed to be done: 'We're failing these patients. Speak to your local transplant centres about your patients and just have that conversation early on.' D ar and Jenkins declared no relevant financial relationships
