"My initial reaction is one of considerable satisfaction that our concerns have been heard," he said.

"We'll obviously want to keep a close watch on the next process set up and in particularly I will want, when they again raise the problems of the working time directives - which they will do - that this time a proper investigation is done of the way other places in this country are tackling it, and even more importantly how other European countries are dealing with it.

"They appear to be managing European working time directives and training of their doctors without having to undertake widespread closures of units.

"We seem to be the only country in Europe that's decimating our network of units. As far as I'm aware it's not having this effect in other European countries and we need to find out why.

"The situation is we have won a major victory but it's not over yet. The campaign will need to stay on active alert. We must keep a watch that the public and stakeholders are fully involved actually takes place.

"There's a lot of satisfaction and it's down to a lot of involvement from everybody who has worked together across political boundaries. It's been a very impressive campaign."

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