AN analysis of new public health funding figures by the Royal College of Nursing claims that the North-East is receiving far lower settlements per head compared with more affluent South-Eastern areas.

County Durham's allocation of £88 per head for 2013-14 compares to an allocation of £133 per head in Kensington and Chelsea.

Glenn Turp, northern regional director of the Royal College of Nursing, said: "This is an incredibly unfair and frankly discriminatory funding settlement. It is almost as if the Government has said that it does not care about some of the most vulnerable and poorest members of our society. It is crass, callous and offensive."

The Department of Health has said that funding has been targeted at areas with the worst health problems.

However Mr Turp said: "It is obscene that if you live in Chelsea, men can expect to live to 86 years of age. However, here in Hendon, in Sunderland, male life expectancy is only 69. That's a 17 year difference and yet, as our figures show, Sunderland only gets 57 per cent of the per capita public health funding that Chelsea gets."

Mr Turp said areas like Chelsea and Westminister and the City of London have some of the lowest incidences of childhood smoking, obesity, diabetes and lung cancers in the UK yet their public health funding allocations are many times higher than the per capita size of allocations for many areas in the North-East.

Catherine McKinnell, Labour MP for Newcastle North, said: "It is absolutely disgraceful that the Government's new funding formula means that public health funding allocations are now skewed towards areas which have far fewer health issues."

A Department of Health spokesperson said:"For the first time funding will be targeted at areas with the worst health problems.

"We have made sure no local authority receives less funding than they spent on public health in the past. By guaranteeing to maintain this funding we are ensuring local authorities will be able to cover the costs of providing public health services for their local communities."

Allocations per head (in brackets) are: Newcastle (£74), Sunderland (£76), Redcar and Cleveland (£81), County Durham (£88), Hartlepool (£91), Middlesbrough (£117), Westminster (£133), Kensington and Chelsea (£133), City of London (£184).