London: Health cash row in parliament

The escalating row over NHS funding in South London was taken to the House of Commons.

MPs Simon Hughes and Kate Hoey quizzed Health Minister Patricia Hewitt about the future of health-care last week.

Even though Lambeth and Southwark's primary care trusts performed well in their annual ratings, their budgets will be slashed and services hit.

Mr Hughes is spearheading the campaign to stop the cuts which will mean less cash spent across the services, with sexual health services the worst hit.

Last month he met with Ms Hewitt but said he was disappointed with the outcome.

During the heated Commons debate last week, Mr Hughes asked: "What changes in the budgets for 2006/07 for NHS trusts serving Lambeth and Southwark have been agreed?"

Ms Hewitt replied: "I asked NHS London to look again at budgets in Lambeth and Southwark. "It has confirmed that after other factors have been taken into account, Lambeth and Southwark primary care trusts were asked to contribute less to the London-wide risk reserves for this year than most other London PCTs."

Mr Hughes told the Commons he had thought that after meeting Mrs Hewitt a "fairer" allocation of money would be agreed.

He pointed out that despite Lambeth and Southwark being among the two most deprived boroughs in the country, an estimated £23million would be chopped from the budgets for Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley trusts.

However,the Secretary of State answered that Southwark and Lambeth would get the money back once the other badly performing London PCTs were up to speed.

Until then Lambeth and Southwark PCTs will have to continue to bail them out.

After the debate, Mr Hughes said:"I and the other South London MPs are upset that it appears the Government are refusing to budge on this."

Presumably both MPs Kate Hoey and Simon Hughes will be voting against the EU budget deal - a clear waste of billions of pounds a year of public money.

The government plans to give this money to an organisation that, for twelve years in a row, hasn't been able to get auditors approval for its accounts, while there's clearly not enough money to go around London's NHS trusts.

Blocking the EU budget deal and making this saving would be an obvious source of much more money than is needed to prevent these NHS cuts.