THE Government last night defended Alan Milburn after allegations that he fiddled hospital league tables.

A memo leaked to the Health Service Journal shows that the former Health Secretary intervened last year after his local trust looked like losing one of its three stars.

A day later, the trust - which included Darlington Memorial Hospital and Bishop Auckland General Hospital - regained its third star.

Only three-star trusts can become foundation hospitals and receive a £1m bonus.

The Darlington MP dismissed the allegation as "complete tosh" but the Tories say that he secured higher ratings for a hospital trust which also serves the Prime Minister's constituents.

Yesterday, Commons leader Peter Hain insisted Mr Milburn had been asking questions about several trusts which were introducing the system and not attempting to issue an instruction. As a result, trust ratings had gone down as well as up, he added.

The Health Service Journal said it had seen correspondence between an aide to Mr Milburn and Department of Health officials, from just before the 2002 ratings were to be announced, in which the aide queried why the trust had fallen from a three to a two-star rating.

A day later, the South Durham trust's rating increased to three stars.

In a statement, Mr Milburn said: "It is complete tosh to allege I somehow secured higher ratings for particular hospitals.

"It is clear from the Health Service Journal that the number of three-star trusts went down in the week before the ratings were published, as final data was analysed."

He said two of the four hospitals raised by his private office were not upgraded. "There is a world of difference between asking a question and giving an instruction."

During exchanges, shadow Commons leader Oliver Heald demanded: ''Surely an independent inquiry is necessary into this allegation that health service ratings were manipulated for political purposes?''

Mr Hain replied: "It would have been very odd indeed for the Secretary of State not to have been involved in commenting upon and raising queries about the formative stages of a brand new system of evaluation."

In the most recent round of star-ratings this summer the County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust - which now includes the University Hospital of North Durham - lost its third star.