NHS funding fiddle...continued

Hemel MP Mike Penning examines NHS funding to new Government Ministers' constituencies.

Newly promoted Shadow Minister for Health, Hemel MP Mike Penning, has been examining the NHS funding allocations to the constituencies of his opposite numbers on the Government’s ministerial team.

Hemel Hempstead’s General Hospital and much valued A&E Department are under threat of closure as local management grapple with large funding deficits. Mike Penning has been looking at how the NHS spreads is funding around the country.

For the year 2007-08, the West Herts Primary Care Trust will receive an average of £1,257 per head. Comparable figures for Government ministers are:

• Rt Hon Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for Health £1,511 (Hull Teaching PCT, £254 more than West Herts PCT and £123 above the England average),
• Ann Keen MP, Minister of State £1,477 (Hounslow PCT, £220 more than West Herts PCT and £89 above the England average),
• Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo MP, Minister of State £1,398 (Bristol PCT, £141 more than West Herts PCT)
• Ivan Lewis MP, Minister of State £1,362 (Bury PCT, £105 more than West Herts PCT)
• Ben Bradshaw MP, Minister of State £1,318 (Exeter PCT, £61 more than West Herts PCT)

Two of the Ministers’ constituencies – Hull and Bury are “Spearhead PCT” which means they qualify for extra cash to “tackle health inequalities and narrow the gap in health outcomes in the fifth of areas with the worst health and deprivation indicators”.

Mike said:

“The NHS funding fiddle continues with the new Ministerial team each getting more than the national average NHS funding in their constituencies. It is totally unfair that the NHS spends an extra £254 per head per year in the constituency of Secretary of State Alan Johnson than it spends here in West Herts.

“Just £100 per head more in Dacorum would have meant our NHS Trust wouldn’t have a deficit and our hospital could be saved.

“Of course, I understand that areas with higher than average deprivation may need more money, but what this doesn’t account for is pockets of deprivation in areas that are otherwise considered less needy.

“I am also concerned that the formula is weighted too much in favour of so-called deprivation indicators and doesn’t give enough consideration to other health-related factors such as old age.

“Hemel has a higher than average elderly population as a very large number of young couples settled here in the 1950s and fifty-odd years later they are now in their 70s and 80s.”