A LIVERPOOL hospital threatened to withdraw care from patients who refused to join a smear campaign against a world-renowned heart disease consultant, an MP said yesterday.

The extraordinary allegation – made using Parliamentary privilege – follows the suspension of Professor Mike Chester, who runs the acclaimed National Refractory Angina Centre (NRAC), at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen.

George Howarth, the Knowsley MP, claimed Professor Chester was the victim of “false allegations and flawed disciplinary procedures” at the hospital trust.

And he described how worried patients told him they were telephoned by “senior trust staff”, urged to make complaints against the NRAC chief – and warned their future treatment might depend on their co-operation.

A Parliamentary motion, tabled by the Labour MP, urges the Government to step in to “instruct” the trust to end its campaign against the Patients’ Support Group, which boasts several hundred members.

It alleges the group “has been victimised and has been inappropriately pressured to make false formal complaints against Professor Chester by senior trust staff, in several cases by means of threats as regards future treatment”.

The motion, which appears on the Commons order paper, also “notes that the Patients’ Support Group has succeeded in initiating a General Medical Council investigation into what has occurred”.

Speaking to the Daily Post, Mr Howarth said he had been contacted by patients angry at the alleged treatment of Professor Chester by his employers.

Last night, asked to respond to the allegations, the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen trust would not comment on whether patients had been contacted, or whether references were made to their future treatment.

The short statement also declined to confirm that Professor Chester had been suspended, although the Daily Post has been told that he has not been in work since late last year.