Additional NHS funds for 122 Labour Constituencies
22nd September 2006
Mike Penning MP questions the fairness of NHS funding allocations.
The Department of Health has just issued a revised list of sixty two Primary Care Trusts who receive additional funding because they are designated as Spearhead areas. In 2005 John Reid, the then Secretary of State for Health, announced that this Spearhead Group was to receive additional money in order to “tackle health inequalities and narrow the gap in health outcomes in the fifth of areas with the worst health and deprivation indicators”. He announced that for 2007/2008 Spearheads would receive per-capita funding on average of £1,710 per head compared to the average for England of £1,388 per head, an additional £322 per person. Mike Penning MP has analysed the list of Spearheads and commented:
“The Spearheads cover some 128 MP’s constituencies and when I looked at the list of their names it read to me like a who’s who of the Labour Party. 122 of the constituencies are Labour, 3 are Lib Dem and only 1 is Conservative. In my constituency the hospital is being closed and moved to Labour’s Watford constituency and I have in my constituency areas which have been designated as some of the most deprived in East England. Highfield Ward is one of the most disadvantaged areas in the whole of England. For 2007/2008 the funding for Dacorum PCT was set by Labour at £1,245 per head. This is £465 per head less than the Labour dominated Spearhead areas. The publicised deficit for the West Herts Hospital Trust of some £27m equates to just £54 a head and because of our under funding not only is our general Hospital to be closed but over 750 jobs are threatened. This post code lottery must be exposed and stopped.”
