Tom Hodgson's Letter in the Echo

11.34.10pm GMT Sat 20th Feb 2010

Haughton West Lib Dem Focus team member Tom Hodgson had the following letter published in today's Northern Echo:

"Health editor Barry Nelson's report about private finance initiatives (PFI) in the NHS (Echo, Feb 17) was very fair. We are paying private companies billions of pounds too much; this is where much of Tony Blair's much-heralded extra spending on the NHS went.

Your writer could have added that we are also paying private companies for the privilege of parking at hospitals and that the building of schools, prisons and city academies is giving more big bucks to private companies.

Similarly, private companies are used to input and analyse confidential information by the Department for Work and Pensions and other government departments.

The people of Darlington paid millions of pounds to private companies for a road which goes nowhere except a roundabout which slows up traffic and a town centre revamp which is rapidly ageing with a water feature hidden under some steps.

The waste of our money is important, but the real tragedy is that ordinary people can't do anything about it. Politicians locally and nationally either don't tell you their real plans or don't listen to ordinary people.

I hope the British Medical Association campaign against creeping commercialisation of the NHS does succeed, but it should only be the start of a more fundamental change in our failing democratic system."

Tom Hodgson, Darlington