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Journalist faces "media frenzy"

The tables were turned on Bristol Evening Post journalist Julie Harding when she found herself on the receiving end of a “media frenzy”.

Julie was thrust into the spotlight when her mother, Yvonne Watts, who has arthritis, won a High Court battle “in principle” after she travelled to France for a hip operation because she claimed UK waiting lists were too lengthy.

The 72-year-old failed to win back the £3,800 cost of her own operation, as the judge said she had not been waiting long enough.

But Mr Justice Munby said that other patients who suffered “undue delay” in the UK, could go abroad.

Following the judgement Julie, who is the Evening Post’s crime correspondent, took on the job of dealing with the media with a host of TV and radio interviews.

Julie said: “It was quite difficult to begin with and a strange experience after 20 years’ working as a journalist.

“I knew what was expected and had to work hard to sum up what was a difficult and complex case in just a few words, but after a while I began to enjoy it.”

Julie’s mother travelled to France in March this year for a right hip replacement, and had a second operation in Bedford in June, following months of work and worry by her and her family.

Julie said: “A benefactor came forward to pay for the operation. We wouldn’t have been able to pay for it ourselves, and I was having to decide whether to pay for my daughter to go to university or for my mum to have a new hip.”

Julie also had to find time to plough her way through a 100-page document on the decision, and says the case isn’t over yet as Bedford Primary Care Trust have two weeks to appeal.

The judge failed to define “undue delay” – although he said it was less than a year but more than three or four months.

But Julie said she was pleased the issue had been given so much media attention, although she doesn’t think the decision will open the floodgates for others seeking treatment abroad.

She said: “It is still a complex process to organise an operation abroad and win permission for it.

“The Department of Health is re-writing their guidelines on how to go about getting treatment abroad, which is a good thing as it was as clear as mud.”

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