THE decision to offer Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy as an NHS procedure has come far later than can possibly be justified by even the most spin-spouting official.

Time and again in Swindon alone we have seen cases in which the parents of young children have been denied the procedure. Time and again they’ve been assured by penny-pinching officials that such an operation would not help.

Time and again those parents have been obliged to opt for private treatment and launch mammoth fundraising efforts.

Time and again the private operations have gone ahead and the children in question have been left with an immeasurably better quality of life.

Some of the parents who have been forced to raise money themselves could be forgiven for feeling aggrieved at the moment, even though some will still be able to use the cash to pay for the vital post-operative physiotherapy which must still be sought privately.

They should congratulate themselves, however, because their tenacity may well have changed the lives of countless future children for the better.

The NHS says the new procedure is being evaluated for three years.

We suppose it has to say that – because otherwise people might accuse it of refusing to believe the readily available evidence that the operation is far more effective than was previously acknowledged.

Some words of apology to the children whose lives it was willing to blight and the parents it put through hell might be appropriate.