THE parents of a North Yorkshire schoolboy who died while waiting for heart surgery said they can finally begin to put the tragedy behind them after more than two years.

The inquest into the death of Richard Woollard, eight, of Lingfield Crescent, Dringhouses, York, and formerly of Kirkbymoorside, was concluded yesterday when coroner David Hinchcliff recorded a verdict of death by natural causes.

Mr Hinchcliff, speaking at the inquest in Leeds, rejected claims that a failure within the hospital system had led to the death of the youngster on December 3, 2000.

He said Richard, who was born with a congenital heart defect and was operated on within the first week of his life, had been regularly assessed for deterioration by doctors in York and Leeds and had not "got lost in the system".

The inquest heard that Richard, a pupil at Northfield School in York, had been placed on a waiting list for a complex heart valve procedure in 1997, but temporarily "suspended" from the list because his condition was consistently stable and it was thought better to wait until he was older before attempting the procedure.

He was returned to the list in September 1999, with an expected waiting time of 12 to 18 months, but his situation was complicated when he developed an inflammation of the heart, and suffered a stroke which made surgery unwise for at least three months.

The court heard that at no time had Richard's need for heart surgery become an emergency.

After further deterioration in December 2000 Richard was taken to York Hospital where he collapsed. He was stabilised and transferred to Leeds General Infirmary where he died.

Dr Raman Patel, a cardiologist at Manchester Children's Hospital, who appeared at the inquest as an independent witness, said the optimum time to operate on Richard would have been between six and nine months after being placed on the list.

But he said that he would have had to wait his turn along with other elective patients. "That is the reality of the situation" he said.

Kevin Watterson, a consultant cardio-thoracic surgeon at Leeds General Infirmary, who operated on Richard as a newborn, said that deciding the right time for surgery was a balancing act between risks and benefits.

He said: "If I had operated on Richard when he was four or five or six and he died, and there was a high risk that he would have died, that family would not have had Richard for as long as they had him."

He went on to say that in an ideal world would there be no waiting lists for elective surgery.

He said: "If you can't recruit the doctors because it's a particularly difficult specialty to work in, you can't get the patients through. A target is to get the patients operated on as quickly as possible. The targets aren't met because people won't come to work in the system."

After the inquest Fiona Woollard said she and her husband John were looking to the future: She said: "I'm glad it's finished because it has been a long time. We can move on now because it has been hanging over us.

"I feel that the coroner has done a very good job and Mr Watterson did a brilliant job on Richard in the surgery.

"A lot of people need thanking in York and Leeds that have been involved in his care."

Richard, who was the grandson of Kirkbymoorside GP Dr David Williamson, lived in Malton for the first few years of his life and attended Woodlands School near Malton before transferring to Northfield School in Acomb, York.

Updated: 10:03 Friday, March 14, 2003