Labour voting areas get most PFI NHS cash

Questions have been raised about hospital building projects as it emerged 85p out of every £1 spent has been invested in Labour areas. Many hospital build projects have been funded through PFI. Official figures showed that of the 47 hospitals built since 1997, 33 served areas represented by a Labour MP. That compares to 10 in Tory and two in Liberal Democrat territories.

The Tories and Lib Dems questioned the motives behind the spending, but ministers said "patient need, not party politics" was the determining factor.

Of the remaining two, one was in the Respect party's sole seat of Bethnal Green and Bow, and the final one serves several different constituencies in Avon and Wiltshire.

Overall, the capital value of the projects - almost all undertaken through the public finance initiative whereby a private company builds a hospital and then collects "rent" from the NHS for around 30 years - was around £4.1bn. Of this, nearly £3.5bn was allocated in Labour constituencies.

Labour currently holds 353 of the 646 seats in the Commons, compared to the Tories' 198 and the Liberal Democrats' 63.

Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, who obtained the data by tabling questions in the House of Commons, questioned the motives - especially as ministers were wanting to shift care away from hospitals and into the community.
He said: "Patients in Conservative and Lib Dem areas will be wondering why it is patients in Labour areas [that] benefit from virtually all the spending Labour is committing to building new hospitals which are, apparently, unnecessary."

And Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "The case for new hospitals should be based entirely on medical need and including any political considerations would be quite outrageous. This analysis raises serious questions that the government needs to answer."

From:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6547703.stm

Health Direct is appalled at the biased NHS funding allocations that Labour ministers have been directing to their own constituencies and is one of the greatest scandals of Tony "purer than pure" Blair's time in office.

On Nov 22, 2006 Health Direct posted: Hewitt defends NHS cash for Labour voting areas when Patricia Hewitt sparked new controversy over NHS funding last night after insisting that it was "absolutely right" that spending per head on health care was at least 35 per cent higher in many Labour areas than wealthier Tory ones.

The Health Secretary told MPs that people in more prosperous areas had the "good fortune" to be in better health and as a result needed less allocated for their care.

Asked by a Tory member of the health select committee, Mike Penning, if it was fair that people in her Labour constituency of Leicester West received £1,300 per head in NHS spending, compared with £960 in his Hemel Hempstead seat, she replied: "I am satisfied that funding allocations are fair. I believe that reflects the very real differences in health areas, in the prevalence of disease between our two constituencies.

Mr Penning said Miss Hewitt had given "the most complacent, arrogant and patronising evidence I have ever heard." He added: "She gets nearly £400 per head more than I do for the NHS because my constituents aren't as sick. It is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard."