Boy dies after op stopped through lack of cash

A nine-year-old boy with severe epilepsy died after an operation to treat his condition was cancelled because Britain's most famous children's hospital ran short of money.

A nine-year-old boy with severe epilepsy died after an operation to treat his condition was cancelled because Britain's most famous children's hospital ran short of money.

Peter Buckle, from County Durham, died on Monday from a massive seizure while he waited for a brain operation to be rearranged - for the second time - at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London.

The hospital had cancelled earlier operations - once in March because it had over-run its budgets for operations and then last month because nursing staff had contracted a viral infection.

The procedure had been rearranged for 10 June, using a new technique successfully pioneered by the famous central London hospital, which is widely known for its fund-raising.

His mother, Judith Buckle, told The Sunday Telegraph: "We will never know if the operation would have saved him. That is the most awful thing about this. We are devastated."