Mike Penning condemns government's NHS spending formula

Mike Penning has yet again condemned the formula used by the government to allocate funds to local NHS Trusts which gives Dacorum £400 less per head than the Health Secretary's constituency.

In a major speech to the House of Commons yesterday, Mike Penning MP for Hemel Hempstead condemned the government’s NHS spending formula which allocates £400 less per head to Dacorum residents than to Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt’s constituency in Leicester.

Supported by fellow West Herts MPs (David Gauke MP for South West Herts and Anne Main MP for St Albans), Mike Penning told the House: “These cuts and changes are being made because we are not getting a fair deal.…we in Hemel Hempstead and west Herts get £400 less per head than people in the Secretary of State’s constituency. Her answer to that was that we are healthier. If someone is run down by a car, it does not matter how healthy they are—they need an A and E.”

Mr Penning told MPs that at the general election, Labour used the catchphrase “Investing in your health” to promote plans for a brand new PFI hospital in Hatfield and a £350 million PFI project to improve Watford general hospital.

He said:

“Since the general election…a decision has been made—which has nothing to do with clinical care or with greater efficiencies in the way that the health service is run locally, but which is purely to do with financial problems—to close the Hemel Hempstead hospital and to move its acute care services across to Watford, and the £350 million project will not take place so they will be moved into portakabins…

“That is frightening my constituents”

Speaking after the debate, Mike said:

“This is not a case of a decrepit Victorian hospital being replaced – Hemel hospital has seen significant new building work in recent years. It is shameful that all the recent investment is being wasted and that the people of Hemel will end up having to travel to Watford to be treated in portakabins.

“If the funding formula was changed so that West Hertfordshire received as little as £100 per head more, the financial deficits could be wiped out. That would still leave us receiving significantly less than the people of Ms Hewitt’s constituency in Leicester.”